Nine Million Sick Californians as Ocean Resuscitation

               Golden Shovel after Mother Goose

You put diamonds on to go swimming tonight, and what I see is a different ring—

an old, soldered plastic one, a second, deliberate mouth, a mask looped around

all the roads and rivers that keep your body together. You are golden now, but the

breaths tucked between your wheezing teeth were once far less than rosy,

and I remember clutching your citrus-stained fingers, listening to your coughs. My pocket

has held nine million sickbeds. Yours was white, water-logged, jammed full

with prayers and shark teeth. Doctors sunk you into the ocean and told me to think of

better things—the Sierra-glow that I grew up on, a fledgling quail’s soft song, the posy

flower you put inside my redwood bassinet. They said, this woman will soon be ashes—

but I replied, this woman’s name is California; starry seaside; she accepts no ashes

today. From that, your lungs heard surf and survival. Between echoes, we

watched the grey whales beach you back to shore. Between breaths, I milked all

the mussels that followed. Now see the ocean two years later, half-in half-out of its fall-

ing—salt still sits between your lips, but it cannot drown our grotto hearts down.