The Date, 1973
We sip from long straws,
share a Trader-Vic’s Kava Bowl,
and let rum and curacao send us places
we’re too shy to go. I take a maraschino
cherry and place it between his lips.
He bites. I pull the stem.
Under this thatched hut roof,
we taste Cosmo Tidbits, and finger tiny
paper umbrellas. He’s no longer
a baseball, bicycle, beer guy who’s
never heard of Ram Das, and I’m no longer
an encounter group, disco-dance devotee—
we’re undercover agents, selling ourselves,
testing stories and smiles, hoping this high lasts.
Cerro San Luis and Bishop Peak
I like to think
my eyes mirror mountains
and let them see themselves,
their rugged rocky pinnacles
hugged by California oaks.
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Dolphins and Daughters
At a Key Largo
swim-with-dolphins pool
I was disappointed when they ignored me.
The guide said dolphins are curious when
something’s different — if I were missing
an arm or leg, then they’d come close.
When I was six, on a trip downtown
with my mother, I saw a man on crutches,
one pants leg folded, part of his leg missing.
My mother yanked my arm and said,
Don’t stare. Not like a year ago
when my friend Kathy saw her six year old
stare at a man in shorts with a prosthesis.
Kathy went up to the man, said her daughter
was curious, and asked if he’d show
how his leg worked. He sat on the ground,
and unbuckled it. The little girl touched his thigh,
and his prosthesis. She smiled. He smiled.
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