Luka's Works and Ramblings

in city park a crow laughs, while a girl scatters rhinestones and crumbs.

the bird hops childlike over the warm cement, offering coins from his beak.

a frowning man at the bus stop probes the folds of his wallet for a bus token.

deft fingers meet softness- pinches of rhinestones, and crumbs.

he smiles, remembering freedom.

"This is the end. There's nowhere to hide. Too much light, too many people, not enough space. All this sand but I am too big to bury myself. So big! I cannot run-- I am too slow and I have so many legs. Always too many legs. Why so many legs? There's nowhere to hide. They are coming. It's all over. I'm so cold. Oh God. I can't-"

The girl dips her hand into the icy water and trembling fingers lightly examine the object of her fascination. She does not know its name by touching. "Pisaster ochraceus," I tell her. "The ochre sea star." She knows now, and she is fascinated by its tiny, soft body: so cold and so foreign. The girl is all sea salt and wonder. The star slowly extends one arm towards her, but I think she misunderstands the gesture. "It doesn't want to be friends," I remind her. "It just wants to hold on to something, and all those little suckers can be a real pain."

"What is this soft, warm surface? It's squishy like me. Squishy and young. Can I eat it? I think I'll try to eat it. If I can just reach it-"

The girl-- eyes wide-- curls her little fingers around the sea star's waving arm. Her parents smile and look on, but I can't help but feel concern. We have a procedure for this-- should the star's feet get stuck onto a guest's hand, we need to carefully scrape them off so as to not damage the animal. I keep this in the back of my mind and a plastic card in my back pocket.

"The squishy creature has arms too. Five of them. Maybe it's a sea star like me. I'm not sure if I can eat that. Maybe I can climb on it!"

Soon, the girl's palm is flat against the underside of the animal. Nervously, I make small talk with the parents, but my eyes are on the girl with her hand submerged to the forearm. No one else sees my concern. Perhaps I'm worried for nothing.

"This is a good spot for resting. It's warm and soft. I think I'll attach to it for a while."

The girl grows uneasy. Maybe the water is too cold, or the sensation of all those little suction feet is too strange. She pulls away. I am slow to react because I didn't think it had grabbed her, and before I could stop her-

"What are you doing? Okay, I'll let go. Just give me a second. No, STOP-"

details slip through busy fingers but still warm the wistful touch and time over-exposes memory like a photograph left in the sun

so I don't recall what you wore or the music we played that day or where we were driving from or the photographer counting down...

but I remember the flashbulbs when you held me: the way they spun your hair gold and star-bursted my vision like we were the models of love

i grew up as the mayor of a city i dug out of the dirt around the jacaranda in the schoolyard. sometimes i'd collaborate with friends and we'd build empires together.

but, mostly, we fought over supplies and land; we couldn't stand it when one had more than the others. we flung seed pods as cannonballs, shrapnel out of leaf litter, even planned secret raids, but the aggression only turned our bright cities to dust.

white blurs into black blurs into movements by a creature unsure of its own feet,

every leap is overeager like a nephew to the ice cream truck,

each bound slightly overestimated as a tricycle downhill.

nothing feels quite like savoring the sweet notes of sunset as seen from the window seat of an airplane, on overnight route to a distant land: the way the pilot chases fleeting motes of sunlight in the way that they last just a bit longer-