Revise Riptide of memory

1 files changed, 22 insertions, 2 deletions

@@ -27,5 +27,25 @@ my body away, like an angel of death, to the stars.
 
 In Arizona, I thought I would forget the rain,
 forget its sound on a roof like a hard wind, forget
-its smell like a far away ocean. Luckily for me
-it rains here. Luckily because I forget too easily.
+its smell like a far away ocean.  Luckily for me
+it rains here.  Luckily, because I forget too easily.
+
+In a dream, my father is caught by a riptide off-shore.
+He's pulled far out, far enough that the shoreline's
+a line in his memory on the horizon. I can see him
+swimming, hand over hand, pulling his small weight
+
+back to land.  I see him as another shipwreck victim,
+coughing sand and seawater, beard woven with seaweed.
+I see him laying there a long time.  I see all this
+as he tells me the story, years later, the riptide
+
+only a ghost in his memory, I only a child falling
+asleep.  My mother's making mayonnaise rolls
+in the kitchen, a recipe I'll send for years later,
+in Arizona, in the monsoon season, when my thirst
+
+pulls me back home, my memory's lonesome twinkle
+like stars above the mountains.  I'll send for it
+and try to make them, but in the thin air they'll
+crumble into dust like desert air, like a memory.