A Martian Talks About Love

Love is when humans hold their chests together.
They lower their eyes like drawbridges
and let the birds inside them walk out.
They hum into a tunnel that connects their faces.

When they are apart, they write letters
to each other inside themselves, and deliver them
to one another like Christmas presents,
then wrap in a cocoon in front of the talk box.

They walk down riverfronts speaking in violin,
wobbling as if the sidewalk were afloat.
Their hands become yellow butterflies.
Crowds part as they walk down the street.

They go into dim rooms, laugh and collapse
on each other, repeatedly, like broken machines.

The Beach

A father and son loom over a clear tide pool,
while creatures scuttle along the silt
and black weeds sway in the water.
Bleached barnacles wait to cut a slipped foot.

The son shatters his image into concentric circles
and fills the water with a cloud of gray silt.
He pulls out a tiny horseshoe crab and laughs
as it claws for the ground that was beneath it.

On the shore, thousands of adults lay like pods
photosynthesizing with books over their eyes.
A team of children struggle to repair a castle.
Teenagers blast music to drown out the waves.

Another child is off from the rest of the crowd,
kneeling on rocks dripping with purple ink.
A gray storm comes in from sea,
while he desperately smashes oysters, searching for a pearl.