First Fire

You bring me the book of knowledge
and the roses of my favorite flower, violet,
pressed between pages like a poet's memory.
Sealed with the sachets of bees,
theirfragrance dipped in honey buzz.

On the stone terrace, the stars come close.
Braced upon its stem of shadow,
stands the lantern, lit with primordial light
like something out of the world's dawn;
the first fire
that ever cast its glow upon water
to illuminate what waits beneath.
Our eyes hinge on conversations
that seek to fill in the spaces
of what has passed for lifetimes between us.
we use words as experiences we can pass on
to compartmentalize time
and mind, like a frame we place
around ourselves
to reverence the moment.

Later, I sit beside you in your red truck
at the overlook of Gonzales Bay. In the dark,
the lights of the city of angels
beyond the strait are low and wide;
a landing field I could slide onto
with safety on my wings.

Below lies the Chinese Cemetery
where I biked as a child
and caught bullheads with fire along their backs
on the rocks with my father's tobacco tins.
Even then, when I scooped water
I cast out each little death daily
to stay afloat,
formed myself from a minnow,
created a spine I could grow into,
large and firm enough
to support this journey.

Now, as I speak to you in the days
that follow, each conversation
we have is a watercandle, drifting
and threading through the soft summertime
days and evenings of roses and bees
while I arise from primordial waters,
flowing clear of seaweed, wreckage, and rocks,
my life clean and untangled —
a whale released to sea.

— Genine Hanns