[A preemptive poem for Casey and California.]
I give you my transnational heart
and all its miles of ocean salt;
I give you my transnational heart
and all its miles of mud and grass,
rocky hills and sweet-smelling mountains,
twisty redwood roads.
I give you the rusty trailer post office,
the corroded rural park,
the late night tea and bullshit family time,
the meditative drive from home to home,
the open-close-open refrigerators,
the dog-hair carpet, empty bedroom,
stained glass studio days.
I give you the chlorine and barbecue summers,
the happy birthday crackers and cake,
the mauve ringing phone family jokes and drama office,
the noon arrival lunch runs
the highway one ocean cliffs,
sporadic rain and damp heat.
I give you my transnational heart
and Santa Cruz sun-soaked meadows,
stretches of barely urban street,
ice cream shops and favorite taquerías,
lecture hall naps, in-class poems,
the on-campus deer sightings and
cell phone camera animal portraits,
the body-smell bus rides and all the conversations
I listen in on.
I give you my transnational heart
and its jet lag birds eye dreams,
the patchwork quilt of human homes down low
the crowded highways and train stations,
the narrow cobble stone streets and vendors,
the plazas and thieves; the heat.
I give you my transnational heart
and the free-dinner lines
the legal liquor stores,
don’t-sit-down clubs
and the 4am beer vendors.
I give you the monuments and the people
sleeping around them,
the tourist shops and ugly t-shirts,
the serious archways, the churches,
the mind-mushing infinity of art.
I give you my transnational heart
and the salty pizza dinners, red wine,
the exhausted footbone walking,
heat relief gelato, the coffee shops and
subways, accordion players with jaunty mustaches,
the money-in-tin rattle, the maps.
I give you my transnational heart
with its overpriced crème Brule,
the endless tower climbing, and the views,
the famous merry-go-round and
the shuffle-foot scam-avoidance dance,
the strips of sand along the river,
the craggy warm rock beaches,
twelve kinds of cereal, the bunk beds,
top heavy night trains, potato chips and
foot-jiggling Laundromats.
I give you the heaving stubborn suitcase bulge;
I give you my transnational heart
and all the dreamlike maybes,
the there and back again aspirations,
the ticket stubs and virgin journals,
the palpitations, twisting sleep-tongue,
and hope and hope and hope.
I give you my transnational heart,
I’ll come back for it in a year.
Love it!
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