mermaid in the bramble<<

I dreamt I could climb up your back
and sleep an entire year furrowed in your
branches,
toes in the warm blue-green,
arms thin baked loaves against the sand,
pursed rosebuds birthing regretlessness

swimming out the bedroom window once night falls
pregnant with overripe blueberries
and in that wind, not a single stir of restlessness;

it dies in the air between the sweet petal cups I trample
galloping over my sea of buttercup yellow
missioning my way to the woods: I feel bad—
I framed the forest for so many bad memories.

later I pay penance in a dress made of the fragile
life’s work of a spider’s brittle death
black soot under shell nails, digging with the
fever of long hidden paper Secret
I reach the bottom depth as something
patters, musically, where I remember they told me my heart
was, and
sure enough I come home run over rambles climb wooden porch
and find, fated friend:
whalebone wind chime having
given in to Lover,
(lovely Wind) and lying,
Broken.

and with its clunken shatter, now are free sleek sea creatures’ lost genealogies,
I hear their buried mournful wail diving through the
violet summerair
as I cry, returned and blissful, into my bedroom pillow/pretend I’ve done
no thing wrong.

salt water rushes slowly through my palms
as I sleep/in the night
and, woken, the soft morning light
bluely illuminates
the Ocean I’ve grown into—

with each tidal breath
it drowns all that I remember.