Silverjaw Minnow

Each time, it gets harder

In the evening half-light
filtered through trees and across distance and
red-green,

I wonder how you see me
sometimes I think that it is tall and beautiful and unattainable
and at other times I think that it is silly and childish and clumsy

I spent the day in the water, walking far out toward Long Island, past the waders and swimmers in bikinis with long hair, out to where the boats were and the seaweed was tall and the sand was silky and the water was cold

and I dug deep in the sand, to where there were fish eggs and shells and translucent rocks, and there was a child beside me but we did not speak, because we were both building, piling the sand and mosaicing it with the rocks we had found, digging moats for the minnows and crabs and repairing the toddler-damage to our fortified walls.

I wonder how you see me, because sometimes I am the girl riding the plastic sea-turtle around and around in circles and laughing from deep inside,

but sometimes I am the woman, sitting back, deep in the back of my skull, planning and thinking and analyzing, the very old woman with steady hands and a wrinkled breast that is a pillow for all who are weary, having lived out its reprosexual purposes and been upcycled...

and sometimes I dance in bars.
Sometimes it is in short skirts.

So on nights like this, when the light makes the trees black against its brightness and the sun considers setting,
Those women watch it.
Those women watch it, and they wonder
if you could love one of us at all
and which of us it is

Hawk

You jolt awake, your hand coming up and back and your eyes opening, wide and intense like a hawk’s eyes, glazed in sleep.  I smile, whisper, “you’re dreaming,” but your eyes remain that way, as if they are meant for the top of a hooked beak instead of a human face.  “It’s me,” I say.  The changing is imperceptible, but the change itself is not; your eyes have softened and the hand that rose has settled, wing-brush on my shoulder.  And, in that moment, eyes fixed and unblinking, your strong, piano-playing talons clench into the muscle at the top of my back.  And you blink, once, long, semi-conscious if that, diurnal bird in the clutches of sleep, and then the eyes return.  You draw me to your lips.  My breath stops. Your hand releases.  Your head falls.  You sleep.  

I watch you, for a moment, but then it is my turn to settle my hands on your back, to pull myself towards you, to nestle under your chin.  I do not sleep, yet.  I lie awake, forcing my eyes to stay open, clinging to you, knowing that if I sleep, you will be gone.  Let me be an owl.  Let me be an owl...

Instead, I sleep.  One wish per person per night.

(I jolt awake, my hand coming up and back and my eyes opening, wide and intense like hawk’s eyes, glazed in sleep.  And I search for you, semi-conscious, and, every morning, or evening, or afternoon, whenever I wake, you are gone.)

Lisa, 2009

“Listen,” he said, putting a finger to her lips.

“What?”

“Just listen.”  And there was a sound, through the window, a cooing sound that trailed through the night.