Warm Spell, February
For the first time in weeks the wind doesn’t cut like an insult.
My dog feels it too. I slacken her leash so she can dig her nose
in the wet underbrush, letting her sniff as long as she likes.
A woman walking on a San Francisco beach once told me,
We need to give them time—meaning the dog, snout-deep in tangled
seaweed. To them, it’s like reading a good book. Somewhere I read
Haruki Murakami trained for marathons the way he writes—
pushing his legs to the next mile like he pushed his pen to the end
of one sentence, and then the next. Today I’m in no rush. I tread
slowly, sipping the air the way the Pacific Ocean swallowed
our brown bodies just outside Manila, our mothers
waving us back to steamed rice, fried fish, mango on a stick.
Why do I remember? Would I think of this now if the air weren’t
soft with last night’s showers, warm as a mother’s breast? Would I dare
to say, the twigs are chandeliered with rain like pearls from a
girl’s ear?
I breathe. For the first time in weeks I’m returned to my skin.
