Cliff at Shell Beach

From the freeway,
a drawer in the earth’s hip,
like a loaf of bread baking
in that shock of sunrise
with your arms tucked
under the comings and goings
Of a panicked ocean—
how a child fastened to its mother’s waist
leaves spit on her skirt
and roils
while you keep
kissing softly the forehead
telling it to hush,
hush and be careful
telling it
where ships belong
to keep it close
As though plate tectonics
never existed
or the jarring whisper
of goodbye



* * *


Watching Tai Chi Dancers at the Park

Like a conversation between amoeba or lovers
hands tying knots in the air,
drawing in as bodies pivot:
each step as delicate as freshly blown glass.
Faces like moons, cool and decided.

Watching this, eyes fall into a purr
and I think of you, clanging in the kitchen,
your hands, two blinds drunks
flinging olive oil everywhere with such resolution.
The slimy halibut wriggling on a sheet of aluminum.
The mess I will have to clean later.

But scrapping tomato sauce from the floor
I will think of your hands outside of the kitchen:
How, under them, in the blue-green hush
Of our bedroom, my body is illuminated;

How shells open for you.



* * *


How Mother Buried Grandmother

What was left of her, came home in a box (you know this part)
Gray-white (not at all like she had left us), the color of fog
But dry and very fine (as if she were really gone).

(I thought) the tiptoed way mother carried her into the backyard
Would cause the earth to tip, drop her like a child
Launching backwards from its parent’s arms

billowing from her box, coating everything!
But she did not drop her and instead, folded and packaged
Her around the roots of an orange tree (her favorite fruit)

A gift for our comfort.


* * *


© Lisa L. Araujo Davis 2004 - 2006.