On Erosion

I bend down to kiss the grass and call it prayer.

My jeans smudge with dirt at the kneecaps. Behind me, the swing set groans with age.

I say I love this place out loud, how

sprawled out here, I can feel the world’s soily belly

breathe alongside mine. The fat red-white woodpecker

At the edge of the field beats bark into heartbeat, lined up with my own.

I don’t think I am any different from this place. The cloud above me

looks like the dome of a button mushroom, a large curved puff of white.

Maybe when I am old

And lying on my bed beneath a cardinal red comforter, and my chest feels filled with sticky

sap, and my voice croaks like a yellow-bellied bullfrog by the lakeside,

I will wake up and the blue river veins in my hand will be pressed

Into smooth brown skin again and I will be sprawled out here on the grass,

Inhaling honeysuckle, and wind will brush away my hair like a mother’s

Hand. Maybe right now, if I ask for rain, the clouds will break open

Like the leaves hugging the arm of the willow pinned to the edge of my childhood

playground, where years ago I climbed high enough to let the sun hit my throat, where I

held the branch and leaned forward, my sweaty palms pressed against the coarse skin, the

bark-covered body holding me like a promise, where I swung toward the ground,

Where I dropped to soft soil and ran, my small body tumbling

into tall grass, where I stopped, crouched, to let my footsteps catch up to me,

My shadow stretched by afternoon sun, my breath stumbling into breeze.

Wind breaks the cloud above me into wispy strands of white.

The sky spins and the crescent moon moves with it.

Supple bodies always crack with age. River erodes rock. This is how the world is.

I close my eyes and wait for the sky to come

To a gentle stop. Tears wash down my sandstone cheeks,

but everything around me is dry.