Molly Goatwax

Notes from the Stolen Day

A few weeks ago I mentioned that the family took surfing lessons as I gathered shells one last amber warm day. Another observer on the beach of the Delaware National Seashore was a goth/emo boy cradling a giant camera as he sat watching. His fingernails were painted black and as I approached, he self conciously tunneled his feet into the sand. I gave him what I hoped was a kindly smile and queried; "Your toenails, too?". He looked first at the horizon and then at a young woman in a wetsuit. "She did them.", he said. "Ah.", I answered. "Nice." We both shrugged and shifted our focus away from our surfers to some young Menonite women daintily holding their long skirts up as they wet their feet in the waves and minded some toddlers building castles. The men in the group were fishing in the advancing tide. Our surf instructor asked me to keep time and emo boy revealed a smile as my younger daughter managed to stand up on her board. I can still smell the ocean if I think about it for a long time.

Cabinet of Wishes

I saw you walking on Preston Street

in the rain

You passed by the girl with a suitcase

knocking on an unanswered door.

I saw three birds on a wire

but my cabinet of wishes is empty.

Cabinet of Wishes

A falling star, a dandelion, pennies in a well...How do you make wishes?

The not quite blahs

Thinking about lots of different stuff, I saw a Buddist monk in his saffron garment on University Parkway this morning. And in this still heat the motion of a bee in the basil blossoms released such an aroma I could smell it from the middle of the parking lot as I watched a woman in candy colored heels mince into her car to go to work.

For Anselm

Admiring the finials and pressed bricks around the tops of some ancient rowhouses on Calvert Street, I saw a half dressed man leaning out a window I had photographed the week before. I wondered what his view looked like up there from the fourth floor as we locked eyes before I drove on. 

Night Terrors

I dreamt that I was dead

and what I missed most from life

was sleep.

I had forgotten the teeming carp

in my nightmare.