that riotous season

my heart beats in a birdcage
feather-swift
wrought-iron pulses that
are beginning to quicken.

I'm shivering on the seawall

thinking, take my hand don't take my hand
if you wrap your arm around me I am not so cold
I don't say anything but why pray tell am I thinking
that it would be not at all quite so bad
to spend several days in this position?

I'm laughing like there is nothing to lose

soon there will be a riot of color,
color and chlorophyll, spinning
petals in the heady air.
I feel it coming
in this sudden space of warmth -
the rolling of the sea,
sweaters and sandals heralding
the haze and fog and the dawn of another summer.

I am telling you a story

don't trap me don't let me
feel small again.
But now I realize
once I sat here and was frightened of the sea,
felt vulnerable, out of control.
Now I feel quite so much better I think
it may be time to take a jump

We think we have seen the ghost of a pirate
who is humiliated that he drowned in knee-deep water

I think it may be time to go slowly into that riotous season
that I feel jumping up to meet my touch.