Eight Minutes at the Bottom of the Ocean

Bubbles caress my face,
weave their way through my hair and wobble
towards cerulean surface, but I listen to blackbirds
on a cobalt autumn day. I
sit on the front lawn and savor the smell of gasoline
and cut grass.

I see myself walking out the door on the first day of fourth grade.
I walk across the street and turn back, to look at the house I
grew up in. I see my father, and his father,
and his father’s father on the front porch, smiles and
waves call for me to come back. I try to run to them but they
sink
farther and farther away.
They wave to me before vanishing
into some unseen precipice.

I am the house, the tan siding my father installed
one hot summer. The cornflower curtain over the window
in my bedroom and the sound of a lone sprinkler,
running all night long.


Maybe I never posted the original version of this? Odd...