The Girl Who Loves the Ocean

For Megan

Her room is orange and rose
when she’s sleeping—she breathes
deeply like a wave cresting
and falling from the tip of
everything she can be that
she doesn’t believe about herself.

She is a rock or a bottle before it is split
into the fine, silky sand that makes
each step a warm pillow. Her freckles
were carefully kissed by God
into a deep roar of compassion
and intuition—she sees and feels
like the ocean: rough and real.

As she is right now—eyes closed
and auburn hair relaxed like
strewn seaweed, purposeful in
its aimless beauty—her lungs empty
and fill the clear air like glass
shattering and smoothing as it’s hit
by the relentless tide. The sparks
left behind look like the stars

I see when I leave her house late,
like I always do. I’d do anything
for her; the best of my sand
was made from her smooth,
kaleidoscopic glass.