My desire is to squat by the tide pool,

Teeming with purple, blue, acid-green life.

I want to wait all day in the hot sun,

Trying to catch bullheads in my bare hands.

I want to pick up the pin-cushioned

Sea urchin, caress the soft pink cervix

Of sea anemone and be pulled in.

Starfish heap over one another.

I want to find sea slugs, their long penile

Gooiness drooping from low rocks, hiding.

Turn over rock after rock to find crabs,

Flip them over, check bellies for their sex.

I long for such salty, simple, luscious

Days, as deep inside me basks a scream.

Go see the bank where the witch hazel swells,

Its intense yellow and tainted red fronds

Curling in January’s chilling wind,

Reaching downtown toward desolate ground.

Even pussy willows wear their red caps.

But witch hazel’s bloom, her banished desire,

Dazzles dark yews, like dancing pink tendrils

Of sea anemone in front of oozy

Foliage in summer tide pools, kissing

My finger, sucking it in when I touch.

Go see the stark winter blooms, you urge me.

But wandering this front yard, I am cold,

Hearing our dog rustling damp viburnums;

I’m a fool who needs permission to praise.

Like a dreamed black bear I have slept curled

In the north room, an unnoticed totem.

My mantra is "I don’t know" and I’m tired

Of not knowing. I’m a yard of past ripe

Apple trees and frosted rose hips stolen

By alchemic bears in moonlight. I am rain

Shuddering in gutters. No one sees my

Desire running in this hot winter wind,

Or my mortal hibernating heart.

Like my dreamed bear arousing, I must wake,

Life half past, no baby clutching my bra.

I must forget I don’t know what I need.

What scares me most sleeps wildly by my knee.

Who will it see when it wakes, looks at me?

One dark rain-sopped afternoon, the bold green

Front lawn is blanketed in a black cloak:

Shining, flapping, magical. The bare oak trees,

Too, fool-full of hundreds of crows. I watch

Their council of sentinels from the window.

But that day of rain, I am in a trance

Of the life I have outgrown, recalling

Safer hours folding clean, line-dried diapers.

Scared to slough off my wary enamel,

Scared to recoil, I have forgotten my plans.

I shuffle the archetype deck for clues:

Orphan, Student, Mother, Poet, Lover.

What is that unread winged message

Flooding the inbox of my yard this day?