Courtney J. Campbell		river glass like how a love for hummingbirds could be the color of eyes. or my afternoon napping your profile. shards of glass shift. each moment a colored bottle at the bottom of a river. sand smoothen. hollow. fluvial. each thereafter a conglomeration of fragments. disjointed. ligated. released. refracted into a dream. a memory of what was never there. a prism of all that is. like how your footsteps are my tea after supper. or how the beach settles in your skin. my morning your head full of magnets. your gestures a park swing. or how the cracks in the paint are my love for you and my love for you lies next to a tea cup. silver. smooth. waiting. under a glance. over the windowsill. a slip of light. a red reflection. a flutter of wings. drops of sweet water on the counter.		in the public bathroom when i first walked in she covered her chest - a city surprised in the shower fumbling with her bath towel me the unexpected visitor folding sidewalks longways then over and again into triangles perched one per finger two per hand i said 'four' and opened the flap it said: wait so i waited for santo antonio and by the time são joão came i had eaten all of her canjica sold her pamonha invested in frango à cabidela and candomblé but i never learned the balance of her forró i never grasped the twirl of her umbrella i wanted to love her true it's true but my arms were an assembly line in the truck & bus plant and every time i reached in for a hug she melted into bars around the newest robot and the old paint chip under my fingernail came undone a hug a spark plug a freckled song and no matter how beautiful it may be that she is the beach and she is the sea the canal and the mangrove the high rise and the zinc roof balanced precariously there was something in her meditation her drop-of-water acceptance her violent eyelashes and her feigned embarrassment at my expression as i opened the door