A compilation of the dark green sea grape leaves

The black soil that birthed our starfruit tree

The glistening tar that marred our cul-de-sac

 I see her with a mason jar

Collecting the rocks and leaves

Pieces of the planet and the universe

To be carried with her, always.

Looking up into a vast blue sky,

The universe is mirrored back to my child eyes

Mason jars housing tadpoles and fireflies

Containing life, glittering light

My mind in time became like an ocean’s trench

A dark, deep blue

Vast, endless.

Like the sky from my youth

Everything I knew, everything I questioned

Floated just beneath the surface

Or far too deep

A scary journey into the unknown

My sun-drenched childhood was transported north

Sailing into adulthood,

My ocean, my sky became cold and numb

Like the way my fingers felt in the winter

Beneath the snow or through the wind

From the hole in the pocket of my pea coat. 

My fingers would feel so cold
Like they could just fall off 

And I wouldn't feel a thing. 

I could just fall off now,

Off and away from the bloodline

Dropping the glass jar of my universe

I could fall away from the tree

Like the sea grape leaves

Fall from it entirely,

And I wouldn't feel a thing.