You created me

with that thrashing tongue

of garbled half-waves on 

smooth sound stones,

aged by thousands of caressing

palms looking to skip on

Puget’s icy surface.

 

You made my patronymic

the peninsula, 

home to faces of fathers 

upon fathers—

their hands in the murk which 

I track over your face.

 

Baptized by campfire,

I sacrifice a pair of shorts to

the splintering side

of this landmass like

a libation.

 

You are called Olympic

because gods are born

from you:

Tumbling down a mountain

touching moonstung 

   fields of tawny straw,

     a rusty dinner bell and 

       moss-loved bridge, 

         a service entrance,

          a night owl’s annex.

You sang me asleep 

with the native rhythms 

of your heartbeat:

Drumming thrums of

mismatched dice 

clanging to a folding table

like Excalibur. 

Squishy soft

crab apples

in the jaws of

three-legged deer.

 

You taught me flight

(over handlebars, that is)

on the main road home.

Catching blood in the map of my

palm creases, 

I tip my chin 

to the last legs of sunshine

through a bridal veil 

of branches.

---

Lucy Thorpe has learned to fly (off of her bike, that is).