so you wanted to know (it is)

so you wanted to know,
but i've avoided your
request these last few days
yet i see you're not going
anywhere without an answer

(it is the tipping of the glass
by a misdirected hand
and flailing to catch the
fall before spilling the wine)

so you wanted to know -
and your persistence is admirable -
but i question the motives behind
that limp smile and cocked head;
your expressions a familiar stage craft

(it is a boat abandoned on the bank of a pond,
flipped over to expose her slatted bottom
and spiny keel, laid to rest in a rabble of wild
grass while the pond moans for a lover's return)

so you wanted to know -
forgive me, that was harsh, but you see ...
i've had my fill of the glad-handing campaigners
who knock on my door only when the clouds stir
above my head and the rain comes a'crying

(it is an unseen finger burning a hole
in the middle of the breastbone
that lets life bleed out all over your
lap and onto the floor at your shackled
feet while you look the other way)

so you wanted to know:
i don't know where exactly the water all sheds
to after it rains. i don't see the evidence
of the storm until after i've
opened my eyes and smelled the air

(it is the beginning feelings of hunger,
just before weakness, when the gut
expands and you feel like
someone has pulled the plug that
sucks you down to a smaller place)

so you wanted to know
and have outlasted my
dodges and vague excuses
and stand there now illumined
by a fluorescent sensitivity

(it is the queer pull of the ocean
water past your feet as the tide
is lulled back out to sea, how it
feels like you're what is
moving, not the briny draw)

so you wanted to know:
so i will tell you, as long as you
understand that i do so from a position of
a man who has crawled under
his own chapped skin to hide:

it is not merely sadness, baby

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sea glass sister

all those sea glass pendants

in the shopkeeper's window

hung from gold twine

a certain constellation

catching the sun

and diffusing her light

we stood, my sister and i,

outside and remained

hypnotized by the watery

glean of their reflections

how they penetrated

us from their distant universe

she was older than i

my sister

and the atlantic ocean

sighed in the background

the breeze a whisper on the bare

shoulders of burnt siblings

'i like the green one'

she said, pointing

i scratched my bare leg

her arm was slender and

her fingers were slim

you could snap her with a word

'i don't have a favorite'

i said, squinting

'of course not, dummy'

she said and she told

me to stop scratching

the same spot on my leg

sea glass the shapes

of an egg, an amoeba

a horse's head, a marble,

a tear drop, a fingerless

hand, a mountain, a

heart, a coin

'they must be a million

dollars,' she finally

said, about the brilliant

pendants, how they were

jewels on a string and

how we were always out of reach

and then, just then,

i saw our reflections

in the shop window

my eyes refocused, fading

from within to without

and we now stood clearly

two burnt and squinting

siblings on a white

commercial row of a street

among rows of coastal

streets and we looked like

hungry ghosts

i didn't like that

my eyes had fooled me,

sliding from pendant to

these two helpless

waifs, teacher's children

on a day's vacation to the ocean

so i closed my eyes

and opened them and the pendants

came back, sharply

dangling, motionless

behind the large glass of

the shopkeeper's window

'someday -'

she began

'yes. all of them -'

i said

'every one! yes -'

she said

'you get the green one'

i said

'i know'

she said

and we walked back together

to the sighing beach

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