Melissa Mack
The Moon Is Time, The Sea Is History
The teens are in a clump
at the beach’s edge
Thank god they’re better
at gender I’m under
a lump of blanket
trying to disappear
into molecular presence
The surface of the water
flickers—wavelet divots
pewter silver pewter silver
dark thorns make subtle liquid cuts
The dolphins, they are in their own
world, a surprise
That moonlight coats
one particular wedge of water
That the radiance bloomed
after the moon was already
in the sky. The water
is a surface inscribed
with unstable points
of pale platinum and
their varieties increase
‘til there’s a sparkling pile like
a diamond heist
or Scrooge McDuck diving
into the coins. The girls
are screaming in their suits
rushing and fleeing the sea
A person mermaids then
checks with her documenting
friends. How do I look?
What will it do?
Grave Couplets
for SL & SS
Where are the dead?
Isn’t it true to say here
Here, palm, here, pine
Here, hedge. Here, house
Teaching children about death
All the living are kids
We teach ourselves to live
With the disappearances
Some things you see for just a second
A certain bird
We want to be transparent
We don’t know ourselves
I miss but am not faithful to friends
I don’t know how to stay
No quiet in the house at intervals
And then quiet
The candles are living things here
The house is neutral
The voice of the audio book holds
a place inside for the child
At night, friends come to mind but it’s too late
to call. It just turned to fall
You have to plan
Or you let it happen
Knowing things is one way in
The pattern on this accent pillow has a history
My way is apology
Wisdom is difficult
Death is everywhere
If unseen things are real
There’s a practical problem of transfer
You don’t have to be gnomic
Melissa Mack is a poet and essayist. She is the author of The Next Crystal Text (Nightboat Books) and the chapbook Includes All Strangers (Hooke Press). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in numerous journals and anthologies, such as Berkeley Poetry Review, Elderly, Faultline, Hot Pink, Pinhole Poetry, The Capilano Review, the minnesota review, The Town: An Anthology of Oakland Poets (Nomadic Press), and other publications. She has been the recipient of a Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Award and her work has been supported by the Community of Writers, Winslow House Project, the University of California, and others. She is enrolled in a PhD program in Literature at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. You can find her at http://melissamackpoet.com.