Even though rain washes away the petals, it feeds the roots.

I didn’t have time for a buttered croissant, for hazelnut coffee, for headlines, to smile, to admire the orange hibiscus, for the voices on the radio, to say goodbye to my mother. Then, I slowly woke up to a new morning and gave my attention and I grew Time.

You can’t make money

standing on your head for fun

As a little child.

All would be better if the phone call went differently 20 years ago.

If I hadn’t waited for him to call. If he didn’t take so long to call me.

But I didn’t understand. I didn’t forgive. I reacted.

The summer was lonely when it shouldn’t have been.

Now, an envy emerges near my belly button

when I see myself in a younger form

who made a better decision.

I clean now beside my younger selves.

Waiting for messes.

Waiting for the phone to ring.

The judgment of youth

will soon cease with a few years

and you will judge not.

The mere thought was absurd. Hitting a small ball coming straight at you at 90 mph. I stood and froze. I let the ball pass me by. Then I thought I could at least bunt. I stuck my bat out there but didn’t connect.

Then I thought I would swing for the fences because that is what I dreamed of doing. I swung and it went foul. I swung again and it popped up. I swung again and it landed in the outfielder’s mitt.

But then I swung and it soared.

Sashes, beer, and belly dancing and the many lunar landings of my friends punctuate the eras of my life like a semi-colon separating a complete thought in time.

Where would I be without these cycles of moon friendships? A stagnant tidepool muddled with debris of wrappers and plastic bottles I suppose.

I smile when I think of the five pound replica of the city teetering on her head during the pageant days, or her with the pidgeon legs talking about the military industrial complex, or her with her blonde hair and soft voice berating the devils of the media, or her with her cats and renaissance wedding.

The waves of my female friends keep me afloat.

The dry heat of loneliness causes my heart to long.

It is a place in the Sonoran desert prickly from cacti and hot pebbles and loose dirt where I scream for the human heart.

In my mind, there is an oasis of one man who scatters the sandy path with heart-shaped pink petals.

But on my first step, they fly away before I can reach the cool Jesus water.

Our eyes meet in the liquid world.

We talk to each other through the glass.

We are wombmates alone in our metal cars singing to the same songs, but we will never be friends.

Sad.

A new way to see

Life through the sounds of the birds

and its wild music.