Photo by Lillian Aff / Northwestern

Today I feel queasier than ever;
it’s like when the sun almost comes to you
and then shies away, beckoned by the white;
you stare up and it’s gone, but it imprints
on your eyelids like July 4

My stomach backflipped into the river,
dropping its weight like a sandbank, slipping
precariously close to the sure death
of a 50 foot drop into the green

(I looked down and my snow cone was melting)

Redwood vertigo forced me to sit right
at the ocean’s edge - head overflowing
with home’s painful beauty and excesses

But as days pass on, like poppies on the
highway hillside, I’m not alone, just here