Postcards from my Childhood
(in our small cabin by the bay my mother steeps)
leaves of wild mint
I ride her hip
through my first year
(she repeats names)
cockle clam
wild poppies
chant flame
hermit crab
names are closed
like buds
awaiting speech
(my father comes and goes in four-wheel drive)
his pick-up rattles
cattle guards
(my mother baskets whale bones)
I kneel beside her
smaller
press my ear
to her belly
feel the flutter
of my little brother
(we move to a pine house)
surrounded by fruit trees
before he comes
we grow
with the taste
of the land on our tongues
(we become)