Mocha and me

The sun chokes on cloud and I am where I was when I was. Ten years ago was the last time. The first, I’m not sure. Ten years before that, I believe. Three to twenty-three. Not speaking to speaking to not speaking again. Baby talk throughout. Even here, now, at 50 Point Conservation area in Hamilton with waters soaked in people and land dried with their sleep and dogs like ours, a black lab named Mocha, who died but ran here as my body wet in a wave yellow and toweled with grass and dandelions and her fur, a black depth of lake and rain, shedding, pouring, reforming into bits that may still be here. I am. Bits of me among the laughter and motors and cicadas that boom then bang then nothing in the warm wind that brings wilderness and civilization. Umbrellas open. Clothes close. The day washes into the water like the world requires in cycle and change and continued consistency. I will join it all soon. I will be that dog. Be that Mocha who lives here until she doesn’t because I don’t unless you’ve found this and you may be in 50 point, though it may have become 53 points or 49 because of development or the lack thereof and the trees may have overgrown with buildings or birds and the hairs of Mocha and me may have melted or more and I hope you will plant this me faded and worn somewhere near the scattered shore where you can hold me under with hands sponged in sewage and sand and where I can be clean again, then recycled, and reborn.