Getting Used to All the Pink:

11-10 (a poem)

My house smells inescapably of fish--
the raw, pink kind, even after they're
all fried, with sizzling white eyes
and stiff tails cooked to brittle ends.
I'm getting used to the fish smell
and scars,
little and big gashes and patches
on the eyes and noses and ribs and legs
of the dogs that escort my daily walks and the pigs
they chase and bite.
I'm getting used to the pink interruptions
in the fur, getting used to seeing so much skin
of animals--
so much that I'm more aware, more conscious of my own skin,
My growing herd of freckles,
noticing that my always-hidden shoulders
and breasts are looking pinker, whiter these days
as my arms and face golden with melanin
and freckles; I believed freckles were angel kisses,
once.
But kisses are pink and swollen with comfort and heat,
soft,
yet the heat toughens here and the pink is long gone
with my gag reflux at the smell of fish
and the escaped gasp at the sight of pets.
Sometimes pink outlines a cloud or two,
but I would drop my backpack, my
agenda; I would sacrifice the chance of
suspicion to dig myself in the sand
and be risen by that beautiful black sky that makes my chest tighten
like no man;
to chase the stars with my tiny eyes; to absorb
the cold sand bed with my palms,
to hear the waves sashay,
and to hear my little escorts pawing and playing
in the shore beneath the coconut trees that lazily reach
to caress the freckled, scarless belly of that great
blanket we only give three letters.