Lavallette Beach

Couldn’t make rocks skip so
I watched you make them hop
4-5-6 times across the bay

Our fishing line snagged a crabber’s trap
Thought we caught a bass but it
Was only an empty steel cage

Our mommies and daddies lead us
Down to the beach where
The men bodysurfed
Popped open beer cans while
The ladies waded up to their knees
Along the shoreline waiting
For the clouds to take a lunch break

We would play tag with the tide
Trotting back and forth
Until noon brought the simmering
August heat upon us
And you would give in
Slipping on your water wings
Diving into the waves head first

You would wave me in
First pleading
Then chastising
But I would stay dry
Too afraid of jellyfish and
Wet sand in my swimsuit
Instead I remain at the water’s edge
Like a napping snapping turtle
Anticipating the serenade of
The ice cream trolley

We would discuss our Italian ice selection
Like three scholars debating the existence of god
You would predictably go with Cherry
While I was torn between
Grape and Orange

Your little brother would yell
How he wanted Apricot
But there is no Apricot Ice
We’d tell him
Well then I want Jelly Bean
He would reply

Eventually he would cry because
He lost his shovel
The third one of the week

We would blow bubbles
Bury our action figures in the sand
Build a wall around our blankets

Until the ice cream trolley arrived and
Our grins quickly submerged in a glaze
Of cold sugar
Our pockets stuffed with seashells

We would fall asleep on the dunes
But not before your brother dropped his ice cream
And my father would promise to take him
To play miniature golf to stop his crying

In the middle of our dreaming
The sun would slowly crawl back into
The ocean
The evening breeze would enter the scene
Acting as our cue to wrap our towels around our waists
And head back to the house for
A shower and a Barbecue
Where we would play
Candyland and Connect Four
Until Bedtime

Obelisk

I.

Strolling across the parallax of memories,
Imagination finds herself picking stars like daisies.
She dreams of stories to share her light with.
Scarred by the confines of a nebulous nebula,


II.

Imagination searches for herself under beds,
In messy closets and a dust filled attic.
The laughter of children converges,
A bridge is constructed under a bridge of sky.

III.

She plays basketball on a court of broken glass.
The illness spreads like Starbucks through a suburb.
Star struck citizens purchase flowers from an underwater bodegua,
Watch boredom like Kung Fu movies on a Saturday morning.

IV.

She finds a conch shell on the D train to Webster Avenue.
When she holds it up to her ear
She hears a legendary jazz quintet, dolphin speak,
And a child knocking on a steel door.

We have a right...

We have a right to explore this world
Without your filters
To smell incense burning
In a den that exists
Light years from your mess hall
This world belongs to no one and
To everyone
We are not a calculation
Our dreams are more real and more profound than your masks

We have a right to be citizens of unknown territories
To be tourists inside our own hearts

For love needs no visa
For laughter requires no proof of identification

Our movements coax stars to align to form a finger painting
We are random and illimitable
Like the song of the coqui
In the rainforest that is
Our childhood
Our retirement

We have a right to make and unmake ourselves
To fall tragically
And patch ourselves back together
With the fears of our lovers
With the sorrows or our mothers

The press conference is an illusion
The senate hearing a regurgitation of brats

Our kindness will be erected as a shrine
Our confusion will be the garden that complements its entrance

We are a brief and and neverending pageant
When we embrace
A bridge of light expands
Across all 14 dimensions
When we cry
We give birth and
Throw lavish parties

We have a right to exist unfettered
To be imperfect
To belch and call it a Samba

We cannot be bound by economics or psychological analysis
We are the dream
The memory
The drum
The electrical impulse
The stone
The water's bride
The dust
The silence and
The opus
We have a right to spread our kindness like a cold
To question everything
To be nameless and anonymous
To be boundless
To acquiesce and wave at strangers
To live in the form of the infinitive verb
To be