Terry Tierney

Call Me Before It Melts

Iceberg the size of Manhattan calves
beneath the floor of the world recalling
our neighborhood etched in stone,
sushi from the courtyard restaurant
rolled in pages of seaweed balanced
on your chopsticks like tiny muffins
you never saved for breakfast.

You pointed at the freckled girl
licking an ice cream bar, chocolate lava
running down her chin, her dress
without ruffles, black like a penguin,
her eyes aging in place from blue
to infrared, our speed accelerating,
mimicking a cool breeze.

We sat above an ancient forest
where we heard live oak beneath us
steering toward promises of fog, wolves
stalking deer and antelope, their thirsty
echoes rising through ages of hubris
waiting for our bodies to soak the soil.

Remember when we boiled water
the night our daughter was born,
how she left for college the next day
and returned years later with a new face,
complained about the late storm
throwing icicles at her alone,
the chemical rain that was our fault
before she erased us like bleached coral.

I would have tried to call you
wherever you are, if I thought
it would come to this, but you know
where to find me, clinging to old coordinates.
We might have time for one more
kiss before our watches fail.

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Terry Tierney is the author of the poetry collections Why Trees Stay Outside and The Poet’s Garage and the novels Lucky Ride and The Bridge on Beer River. His poems and stories are coming or recently appeared in Poetry Online, The Bellevue Literary Review, Remington Review, Reed Magazine, Rust + Moth, Typishly, Valparaiso Poetry Review and other publications. Terry lives and writes in Oakland, California. He can be found online at http://www.terrytierney.com.