Notes on Beachgrass by Yong-Yu Huang

Notes on Beachgrass
Yong-Yu Huang

Again, my mother calls about the dream
where I strip wild lilies from the beach.
Greenery wandering in muted tones, the thin decay
of beauty I learned in my mind’s eye.
In the distance, an animal’s fattened belly
tips into salt. The sleeping dog, the tired barking
of gulls. Don’t I know this dullness?
These days, I’d love anything buoyant.
A sign by the rocks says Removal of Wildlife Prohibited
and I scrape a knee in passing. The ragged line,
my welling heart. Above, the moon devouring
the shoreline, its face winter-snapped and gibbous.
It is always hungry, this evidence for gravity.
I feel heavier than I should, bloated.
Why are we always looking for water
outside our bodies? I want the tide
to move faster. I want it to fade
in the evening’s dragging breath,
like the recoil of energy, wound tight
enough to trap foam in the small eyes of sand.
My last night in the dunes, I practiced meditating
with my face tilted towards the rich, leaving light.
How my mother bought a dowsing rod
to find me, sprawled out and kissed
with horseflies. Have you ever seen heaven? I asked.
From where, with whom? I pulled her down next to me.
Above, a bracket of birds heading south.
The errant dog washed out to sea.
I wept at the sound—like the mark
on my knee scabbing over, quietly.