Nth Sunday in Ordinary Time

For a thousand years

we've lived here on this hissing rock.

Once I saw ankles

lift from the shallows.

The Ambassador--Dad told me

as we watched him wade

away. Bivalves, we gurgle,

we open and close.

When I wished

for a white sheet to drape us

when we're dead so it can rise

and fall in the breeze

from the fan, Ma

slapped me on the cheek.

When we're gone, the hole left

will be wider than life itself--she said.

Now, instead, I pray no

righteous match

our sputtered tail to

strike, meaning

the opposite of that;

it's an art we all learn.

When we leave there won't

be breeze and I won't have to miss

the whirr of the fan.

It is sad being

born to a punctured sphere

but it's something, to hear the stars

slowly deflate at night.