pattern me under this mango tree hot air just feet away and barefoot in a cold damp parking lot in winter. blizzards are elsewhere but still give me shivers of something keeping and holding. a kitten, a name, don't let her go, she'll get lost, frightened, perhaps eaten by a wolf in that terribly dark forest with that hard bare path, before the rains made puddles before the children were children and everyone was one moment of fear.

or hope. making circles in the sands and then mazes and then castles with moats and ramparts and towering walls. my sister sat on the green blanket, eating sand. sandy lips, wide eyes, a knowing smile of delight. i found a sand dollar in the early morning and later there were kayaks outside your door, knowing. the small boy was taking donations for his mother the seamstress sewing flowers together in a dark room for people in the square where we met, bumping shoulders and "excuse me" and you slipped me a note on a small piece of paper about the world ending and beginning and reinventing in those small moments between breaths, the same time it takes to trip off the curd and almost fall and duck out of the way of that bus on a mission to find lost cities underground this concrete forest canopy of dust and wet dreams careening into hillsides covered with prickly trees and nighttime snakes and that unmistakable smell of tropical airports in someone else's winter. you ankles got sore. red, raw. old socks, with holes, and old shoes, with rough spots. you stood there, looking at me, accusing. you stood there, watching me, waiting.

for something... a question?
a mistake?
or a wet, messy, bloody, surprise.