07/20/2004 8:23 PM
And there is amber Hawaiian guitar in a sunset window -- a cold nectarine. Your airplanes making white fuzz in my night sky. I never noticed them before.
Three small bumps line my red right ankle -- only three; the mosquitoes wouldn't dare bite me last night 'cause I was with you.
I want my silver hair ribbons back. My nubby sweaters. My giggling at 11:23 PM. My throwing rocks at your window, my spitting cherry pits at the moon. My sparkle pink toenail polish, my love notes left on your bike, my wildpicked daisies in a wet napkin wrapped with tinfoil, my clamshell castanets. Our peanut butter and jelly picnics. Your, "need a lift?", your silly translations, your dropped lyrics, your secret ceiling stars, glow-in-the-dark popsicles, your compilations and Canadians, pirates and pandas, ferry rides and raspberries. Tu límonada.
I brought you a raspberry that night -- you didn't know -- but I chose the largest sweetest one from the pint, rinsed it carefully, and carried it down a narrow flight of stairs to the back yard, in the dark, where you were building a fire. I wanted to feed it to you with my fingertips, gingerly. But you flinched when I reached out to touch you -- I thought better of it and ate it myself. I would have enjoyed giving it to you more.
What shape were your clouds tonight? Space ships, banana splits, ice cream sundaes? Mine were pink fuzzy bunnies.
How beautiful to slip out of our dusty used suits that no longer fit -- to sew new clothes that look and feel exactly how we want. And we see that we always knew how to sew. We just forgot because someone else stitched us into their old patterns for so long.
We are born new every minute. And I have earned my innocence.
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