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)