The Bird Nest in the E

There was a Texaco station
at the first stoplight out of our neighborhood.
Vivid capital letters across a black ribbon
advertised fuel to us and free housing, we would learn,
to others. Our mother saw it first,
the nuisance of twigs protruding from the lower
lip of the second letter. Not the cozy O,
nor the safe triangle of the A, nor even
the the protected valley of the X, but
the narrow slat of the E. The
sparrows abiding there had chosen a home with a ledge.
It swiftly became the fashion for all
present 5- to 11-year-olds to declare,
"The bird nest in the E!" upon the passing
of any Texaco station. Bonus points
if you said it first. And my mother,
whose ears had been used to exclamations
far more grating, would only blink her patient eyes,
knowing she had hinted to her children
at the unpredictable gifts of occasionally looking up.

Salt Dissolves

This inchoate dream I had

was sprinkled into warm water. White, 

iodized grains lilted and settled on the bottom.

I wanted to taste the salt on everything. 

I lost it, split lip dripping. 

(I should know better, I should know better.

It was never going to be the sort of undertaking

I could waltz up to on a whim.)

The ocean rolls into my mouth.

Among the jellyfish, reef sharks, brittle stars, limpets,  

the taste is still there, changing the water.

Spilt dreams tossed over my left shoulder,

they brace me, balast against the incalculability of the sea

and the un-alonest I will ever be.