Page One
AN EXTRA DAY
They drove South to Carmel’s white sand beach.
She said her visiting mother had an extra day.
Doesn’t life fit snug as skin—seamless?
How would you attach an extra day?
We circle the Galaxy on cruise control
500,000 miles per hour.
No safety belts. No stop signs. No red lights.
All green and go.
And going, we meet ourselves returning.
Is this our extra day?
Or is it the magenta plum that drops every February twenty-ninth?
I do know my mother’s surgeon stitched a few extra sunrises to her.
He said, “She has a few more days.”
Mother, a Taurus, took the bull by the horns,
and grasped another 108 days
like the 108 garnet beads of her Catholic mother’s rosary
like the 108 seeds of my Buddhist akshamala
with its final bead stained red.
When life’s membrane finally tore
and mother left her badminton, Beethoven,
mile-long swims and Matisse,
did time bleed a little?
It’s Palm Sunday and the breakfast eggs are nearly done.
The white sand in the minute-timer flows fast —
a billion shooting stars
through a thin crystal throat.
We turn it over
for a little more time.