Tarantella

I remember my 16th year dawning, fresh,

like a newborn baby.

I wish that had lasted.

•

That the little sister, speaking in tongues,

could dance in the kitchen forever.

•

The drunk mother oxidizes on the counter.

•

The gentle father would have lasted

if it were up to me.

But it is his violence jostling for space.

Its thunder convulsing my childhood.

•

I remember a love that wouldn't succumb.

So many crucifying lusts lasting. Sometimes names.

•

Santa Cruz remains. Grey seabirds

wheeling up and out of me.

The early-morning cocktails.

Getting into Jennifer's bed and staying past noon.

The chrome and beryl ocean swallowing every feeling,

stretching them thin until they become just salt

on skin long after the sun has left the shore.

•

I can't grasp the beautiful last-call beasts ripping through

Pacific Street after bars close.

It's standing on sand and broken glass,

5:27 in the morning,

smelling of Old Crow and feeling pure

that I'm sure of.

•

Even now, I hear the bright, coaxing

whistle of the Davenport train. Sometimes,

I feel the weight of all those summers

and loves we fought for like crusades,

how their persistence is a constant rebirth.

•

Meghan naked in Capitola

lives in me forever. Her heart a porch

and I'm sitting all day waiting

for screen doors to swing.

•

My body brimming with memory.

I assign random images to all the emotions

so that I can have a past. My soul

grasping for immortality. My gaping mouth

open to the sky

tasting all the years inside of me.