'California Dreaming'
(Nickname given to me by a patient)
When I was ‘describe yourself’
restless but settled,
okay with who I was most days,
done dabbling in sudden turns and new scenes
domain names, the right one, fresh starts,
my own tongue, busily dissolving lived experience
sending it down where all things cease to be
their former selves,
Well…
That is when I found not myself
but everybody else—and water. I worked
in it after that, became a healer
mermaid-magician. Following my voice,
the blind walked without fear of falling;
the cancerous got stronger, or didn’t;
the paralyzed slowly came to terms
as did I.
So many stories they told me,
mother confessor
before the pool broke
and the water flowed elsewhere.
Lately I miss the West,
where I grew up knee-high to the hippies.