29 Mar 2026: Six

A regret is a crestfallen mother
watching children hurl BBs at crows.
Those cursed animals live in my ribs;
their wings, clipped.
I'm sprawled out on the boxspring
like Tampa knowing
we are the dusty moonlight
in the pages of Fungi of the Pacific Northwest.
The dogearred tome effloresces on the shelf
with prism-splash sticky notes and pageflags.
Maps, pamphlets, developed photographs, and
the taste of peanutbutter sandwiches
haunt all the entries.
There's this,
and I can't get our song
to stop playing in my head.
It starts with loud grinning
at the appearance of
Chanterelle Mushrooms
'round the foot of the big, red tree,
and then comes the beautiful harmony
of our sixth kiss:
The one, the seven, the three, the five,
and back to the root—woven, entangled, 
burlap and silk—the spider's dew encrusted web. 
It's all just such sundrop lemonade, but it feels true;
and, it ends here every time:
At the ocean's edge, looking out over the waves
wondering when you are coming home.

So, I feed my birds, and 
I wait with my lungs floating 
in the waves.