it starts on the stoop, look for the lock box with a heart, says my daughter on the phone from work, only there is no heart, but there are five people sitting on the stoop, chill, on this steamy summer late afternoon, they are laughing about something and in the middle of a story when the man in a dark blue track suit asks, what are you looking for? I tell them a lock box with a heart and the lady with long pink nails says maybe the heart washed away in the rain, it r

I am certain I see him though the sun blinds my eyes, this almost afternoon amongst roses I am certain of that nose, sharp prickly, eyes I could see even in the dark, the mouth that at best grimaced and feet that shuffled down creaky wooden corridors I am certain though he is smaller, the monster I called father who was not my father, hunched over, wearing that same white bucket hat and same dark blue track suit I am certain of the racing heart and frozen blood the floo

we gather to heal, we gather to hear sounds, feel waves, reconnect, start anew on this longest day I say I have no expectations I lie we lie on mats covered with fleece blankets and warm socks, we spray rose water and burn palo santo, the scene is set we are ready a ripple of sound, chimes tiptoe in, like stardust sprinkling, I can feel the peace like a weighted blanket like clean mountaintop mist until a helicopter rumbles overhead, it circles round and round, I

I hit the seaside early, June gloom they call it but I don’t find gloom in the wind in my hair and clouds baby-grey close in embrace, they kiss my cheeks with salty mist I am held I walk alone, not even eight and this beach community has long been awake families making sand castles, riding waves, bikini wearers braving 63 degrees, catching rays on gravel turned sand by rough surf blinding in its infinite cleanness, cool packed sand, soft beneath my feet I am held