Record

—For Amber Kathleen Ryan

Fingers jump back. Singed heredity. We lurched into our cabin, overlapping, hardly thinking. Certainly not to photograph. Beneath a sea of emerald readings. Seaweed trails from an arm, spills out her mouth. Just finger as company and its small cymbal comforts. Imagining myself determined and safe behind the camera. Running in front to record happiness, de-awkwardized. Four hands display. Followed by days of uneven sun. And with waterline’s roses, we drip to one side, portraying ravaged contrarians but children still.

We off board on time, which holds a sign that says THREE WEEKS. This calls for recalibrated trajectories. Propelled from a single fuel, we land quadrants apart. Autumn enters, brief but unmanageable. We constabulate, making the rounds as if we were self-governing. Tiny ideas are hopping all over us. Somebody’s money had been itself. Maybe that was the secret behind our flickering expressions.