Poem for Saturday and Juanita Bay

A Taste of Blue 

By Cynthia Manick 

I tell my father about the way

I collect small things

in the sacs of my heart—

thick juniper berries

apple cores that retain their shape

and the click of shells

that sound like an oven baking.

He presses the mole on my shoulder

that matches his shoulder,

proof that I was not found

at the bottom of the sea.

I also got his feet, far from

Cinderella’s dainty glass slippers—

and fingers, too wide for most

Cracker Jack wedding rings.

I read how some mammals never

forget their young—

their speckled spots, odd goat

cries, or birthmarks on curved

ivory tusks. There must be some

thread of magic there

cooling honey to stone—where

like recognizes like or how

a rib seeks its twin.

-------- 

We had rain forecast for a lot of the day on Saturday, so we tried to get out ahead of it -- we even missed the Orioles game, though Kate kept me in the loop -- but rain caught up with us at Juanita Bay Park, where we were otherwise having a lovely time watching the waves roll in and seeing turtles, eagles, ducks, bunnies, geese, gulls, ospreys, juncos, and various other animals, plus lots of different early summer flowers. Because of the forecast, there weren't many people, so it felt very serene even with the rain soaking us. 

 

We stopped at Safeway on the way home, watched the end of the Mariners game, had dinner, and now we're watching the start of the fourth season of The Boys, which is massively violent and wrong and excellent -- reminds me of old South Park when it was fearless, mixing in real-world people and politics -- name-checking The Masked Singer and Harry Potter! QAnon attackers who mistake Bat Mitzvahs for Zionist cabals! Vought on Ice doing "Put the Christ Back in Christmas" (and of course it ends in a bloodbath)! Still brilliant.