I never know when the tide may go out
and I will have to scramble on my crustacean legs back to the sea,
my mother’s embrace.
Will the seawater that makes up my tears be too saline?
Being native to this element, could I survive in a kinder place,
A place without the screams of seagulls and the threat of being eaten?
You have to be a very special breed to survive in a tidal zone
I learned that in 12th grade
But you had already taught me that.
I am a swan grown silent at the death of its mate.
I am an orca carrying her baby’s body on her back for miles,
Grey clouds threatening rain that never comes.
I am marble polished to a mirror,
And pristine white lilies in bougets.
I am a weeping willow tree swaying above a stream
In which beavers have made a home.
I am dirt tossed across a casket.
I am boxes of items still left to sort.
The buttercups shined with the light of the sun,
Filling my little hands with light.
While the monster was looming in our driveway, eating our kitchen table.
My father sacrificed half of our home to it.
My shield of buttercups gripped tightly in my hand.
The future would come,
But the buttercups were as canary yellow as always.