Projection

will you be hungry?

my daughter                                    i’ve never met you.

                                                                                                 

                                                                       

                                                                                    that i could hold you

                                                            know that love greater

                                    than god’s woven hands

my ocean breadth span dawn to dusk, the horizon sounding off

         silent              appendage

                                                                                                                        contraction—

i can’t

            see you

                                    but I hear you in the black ground

                                                                                                fever pitch summer

                                                                                    coarse sand

                                                the white wooden lifeguard stands resilient in their watch

                        without a person to hold them down.

i slip soundless into shudder under

                                                        gurgle sand

                                                        eat nettles                        gulp

                                                                                                them down

and shit them out as clams—

                                                            divide me on the way out.

you cry for me in my walking dream womb.

                                                                                    i can almost see your soft fingers

                                                                        wrapping one of mine.

                                                            you are so small

                                                                                                                        and so am i

next to the mountains.

                                    we climb the sky to know our size—

                                                                                                this supersedes all thought.

your father’s graceful crop                        green

                                                                        until the alpine cease

                                                                                           to grow—

                                                                                                             we are above the line.

there is no daylight savings time in arizona.

o navajo

o diné

we are sorry.

we are in colorado.

we are sorry.

                        my father stepped on this land

                                                              his father too

                                                                   stretching

                                                backward

we do not know them.

                        my grandfather was adopted

                                   and there is no record

                                               of his heritage.

the grass in your father’s backyard is the sweetest part of him

the glaciers permanent

in his basin

drain into a lake at the head of the arkansas river

                                                flows to the mississippi

                                                                                               

passes new orleans

                                                                                                goes into my ocean—

the head wind

                        hail in july in new york city

                                                                        the car windows plummet

                                                                                    down boulder shingle highway.

where are you now, daughter?

                                                i do not forget you.

                                                i will raise you strong

standing horse on the ridge

                                                and the tide

                                                and the snow all around us—

                                                            big sur should be on our way to alaska.

daughter, your father and i are talking.