Hazel Eyes
my dogs will only eat popcorn
if it is thrown
arching
into their mouth from the
hand of someone who loves them
I wake to a missed kernel in the middle of the
kitchen floor
how many times have I rejected a gift
because it cost the giver nothing
this time last year
I was in Sri Lanka
holding a banana in an
outstretched hand
fingertips touching the trunk of an elephant in the wild
the most mesmerizing roadside surprise I’ve ever
rounded a corner and seen in full view
the month before that
in Spain I stood on the rock crumbling side
of a Moorish castle ruin
off the beaten path where few tourists waylay or pause
the gift half in the journey to get there
what if we never travel again
what if our best lives will be told in stories
B.C. and A.C.
Before Corona
what if the greatest journey we’ll take now
is an effortless deep dive of into the arms of a familiar lover
that costs the giver nothing
nearly every day since my sons were born
I have gazed into their hazel eyes
and tried to remind them
that they contain a universe
that the world is hard and fast and gone
that they be soft and slow and present
how will they remember that
if it costs me nothing
if it costs me everything
I will imagine someday in the future
wheels rolling across endless plains
up mountain sides
my body belly aching laughter into spilling sunset
across open water and
that I will live in a house made of clay
or a flat in a city that rose from viral rubble
if it costs me everything I will discover a new
orbit around a lover a new way to create
an arcing
spark of surprise in my own spine
if it costs me everything I will
venture in hope and day trade in magic
gaze into hazel eyes
and see a universe unfold
