As the Moon Climbs

white begonia petals fall
like snowflakes
onto green grass

Baby grabs object
Stares at it intently, then
Stuffs it in his mouth

* * * * *

I Do

red rose blooms
between
gray lapel and
white gown

During a bad tantrum, she shouts and tears
her clothes off, so we send her to her room
until she can behave. We hear her begin to chat with
dolls, a bride and groom in costumes
hand-stitched in Cuba fifty years ago.
Their dark glass eyes reflect her flickering
smile, coy as their painted mouths.
How handsome you are, she tells the groom.
Your suit is very fine, your shoes are shiny.
How beautiful you look, she tells the bride.
Your hair is beautiful, and your dress–
I wish I had a dress like yours.
Her wedding dress sits in a box in the attic.
Her flannel pajamas lie on the floor
beside the sweater she wears over them
despite the constant Miami heat.
Sometimes she slides one sleeve into
the other so it looks like a straitjacket,
then laughs and shows us how she has hidden
the faded bouquet of her hands.

And the pulverized bones of the world
bake in the sun, giving rise to beaches
furrowed by bare feet.
Cemetery of seashells. Crematorium of kelp.
Gulls circle the sky and protest.
Children build forts and castles, bury
each other in sun-warmed sand that cools
as it deepens into darkness. Only
upturned faces could burn, then.

Vikings, when they did not burn the dead at sea,
laid them in stone ships and covered them
with hard earth soon made soft by grass.
We turn up their treasures, compelled
to dig by some old instinct
as dogs bury their bones, squirrels their nuts,
cats their feces. We scratch
hen-like for bugs we no longer consume.

On the kindergarten playground,
teachers said we could dig in the sand
until we reached black dirt. In a quiet corner
behind a concrete pipe, we hid.
We dug. Sand yielded to soil, soil
to rocks white as chalk. Bare hands
could claw no deeper. We did not know
that we had found limestone,
porous skeletons of sea creatures.
We did not know we played tic-tac-toe
and drew on sidewalks with the dead.

Rusty wire fence
Between long sawgrass, two white moths
Dance a shy volta

Elegant ibis
Skims the tops of idle cars
Red light turns green: go

Unable to sleep
She finds his hand in the dark
Sing the sun’s slow blink