My Name on His Tongue: Poems

February

61 February though it has just started to be February the air tastes of summer my lips are salty and I spend the sunny days peering down at memories in other places every summer past piled beneath me at the bottom: my first fifteen years June through August in the big white house that stared down the Atlantic Ocean in the middle: macaroni and cheese and red wine with my best friend artichokes with my mother peaches, watermelon, sour cheese, grapes in my newly reclaimed country then further up: beer, cigarettes, tequila dancing with friends closer to the top now: furious talks with my father translated into crazy scribbles with a southern poet 62 all different years now one giant summer remembered in February at the beach—the Pacific this time— I watch the sun paint my baby’s dark face red wear him out collapse him into a heap delighted with exhaustion the kind that comes only to children only in summertime except in L.A. where it comes on February 7th ...