Two Poems by Rebekah Miron
Winter boy, landscape
For Vincent
And this one is Mount Fuji, you squeal
with your cold little hands caked in sand.
A sliver of moon hangs over the park
drifting on a tangle of stars all strung up as lights.
And this one is Mount Inari, see, it’s much smaller.
I nod my chin all the way to my chest
as you brush a river that sweeps us into
a sand city, the rake of your small fingers clearing the way.
Now you excavate a lake, the bowl of your palm
pushing aside the grains until you’re pleased with the depth.
We pause to survey, then listen to the hurtling of trams
over your shoulder, the warm glow of the windows
which twinkle through the wreaths of our breath,
the smell of roasted chestnuts shimmering from a box on the street.
As you return to your Japanese landscape, a country
you haven’t seen, have only dreamed of,
I witness as whole cities, great mountains, are born
from your gentle thinking, your wonder touch.
And when another little boy jumps,
crushing your creation, you don’t rush to rebuild.
It was there, you say, and we saw it,
and we did, and because that’s true - we go home.
We decide it doesn’t matter, because
it was only borrowed and brief,
and still, you say, we can share it between us.
Ocean charms
You gesture between us, the tide out
and sand stretched drying in rivulets
where the water has been. Back then,
we had a hand in everything. Sand colossi,
bottle caps, burial pits for misplaced gloves,
crab claws and sea glass. We ran after the waves,
wet and kind as dogs, washed in cold foam
and rinsed of becoming.
Together, we walk the years back
towards the shallows, a ripple of distance.
Along the way we drape ourselves in
all species of slim green weeds, slick and dark
and slippery with feeling. We steal glances
back and forth, furtive as kids lifting sweets
from the corner shop. Your nails sugared
with wet sand, my lips glazed and bitten red
as anemones. We fill our pockets with cockles,
shark eyes, tulip shells and angel wings –
ocean charms we once collected, rough as memory,
in hopes they might summon back the tide.
………………..
Rebekah Miron has recently completed a Masters in Creative Writing at the University of Cambridge. Rebekah's poetry has been published by The Cadaverine, The Kindling, Bind Collective, The American Poetry Journal and Rattle Magazine. She also has work forthcoming in an anthology from The Emma Press.
Twitter: @rebekahmiron