He always wore a mustache.

I used to inhale dreams with peaches
And exhale sonatas
On tuesdays.

At nigbt dad carried my hands
And tied them up in a bow
So i was carrying his gift

"Vision."

I saw it with those hands,
My eyes really liked the taste

It made me smile.
 Smile.
 Smile.

When i grew up i would be like him
My husband would be too--
He would sing tenor and
his hands would find tunes on the piano, name them after me and
be my soccer coach.

The future would taste like smoothie and grow like the tomatoes we planted in our garden
so we'd harvest it in colanders.

We were open, unrestricted circles of potential;
Dad drew it out on whiteboards to prove it to us.

and it was happy.
Because 4 words he didn't speak out loud
were always in my dreams, I traced them there, with my toes, in the sand:
I am good enough.

Sometimes its still hard to treat him like a friend, and I'd like to.

words are sometimes hard to push into motion through the air,

to let them

find the puzzle of bridges

over these multi-dimensional gaps

separating (even the) people (who love) from each other.

but my life acknowledges to his that his dreams fed me until I grew obesely idealistic

and threatened to smile too hard.

'thanks dad' is a bigger feeling than this keyboard can touch. 

I'm waiting for a typewriter and some jazz. 

some peach jam and cheese. 

He'd like that.

everett mills.  

three magi

a glimpse into Day 3:

Grandmothers 

wear scarves in their hair

lifting prayer books to their faces

where bobbing eyes have left tears on open pages.

(Prayers are written and folded like gum wrappers as Tetris players approach the wall one by one. How can we fit all these small squares of paper prayers?)

Girls in matching black skirts and ponytails rock forward and back, forward and 

but one girl in particular stands out.

Standing on a stool, her face is pressing tightly against the limestone wall the way 

I'd like to press myself to sunlight today. She's bright. Her lips move slightly into a smile, never mind that the wall won't let her in.

the phenomenon of the western wall:
here, i'm proud to be a Jew
and I'm not Jewish.

(a few months prior) Day 2:

Sometimes the world is so beautiful i start to cry.
Sunrise on the Dead Sea picks up the desert in its arms
 and gilds her gently.

The sun is up and painting, fingers dragging mirth across his canvas.
 (or
is he a blacksmith? his workshop begins to glow.)

Rising over groves of date palms, the sun
blinds
he is growing taller as we drive.

Once, I grew taller
and the sun was my constant.

Does he remember
little me with dusty palms and rubber shoes?
He will rise above me forever,
but
Today
we are just 42 people learning each other's laughs.

We're artists in a bus,
tracing the Dead Sea,
tracing groves of date palms,
tracing a beach day in our minds
pulling out a stencil for new friendships
again.

In the beginning (Day 1):

We miss their shining eyes.

These are more stars than i have ever seen and each one of
them left heart-craters.

Candles down below become explosions of light pricks

Twisting cords of

fairy lights

Nebulae reaching for somewhere else

They're happy now.

You and I pause in 

reflections of eternally

 expanding 

starlight.

(I'm waiting for an answer.)

who am i because of 10 minutes in a children's holocaust memorial?

--

the fish

Galilee is a blue chair in the sand.
the alternatives were white reclining chairs and
we are
"more numerous than the sands of the sea"

what if Christ fed the multitude with his toes in this sand?

let me sit here forever.

in the ocean of Abraham's posterity I'd like to be one of the grains that saw him, a pinprick in the multitude but he knew the shape of my life.

I was playing the guitar with my feet in the water
I was crunching seashells as I jogged
I was digging my toes in the sand
I was

"swollen with joy," he said. his heart was swollen with joy
and I finally found the feeling of this kibbutz

soft and gentle,
as if someone were spreading butter on my heart.
Sunset here is fresh acrylics replacing a sepia world.

I don't have the words to put Galilee into a box, and I don't want them.

what I want is
humility so I will always remember
what I want is
more time but its time for dinner
what I want is
more chances so what i give will be enough

abundantly so.