a date with god | Sharon Lopez Mooney

A date with god

If only you would

we could swim on Tuesday to the island

where we’d learn Jamaican on the white sandbar

we’d ride the waves, you’d sing a song of love

and dart away with a friendly school of dolphins

then circle back for me,

lingering in little eddies of turquesa

you’d open your long fingers to reveal

a dancing line of starfish for me to wear across my shoulder

like lovers do, we’d dive down to hide near secret coral reefs

to watch the teasing sea tumble dozens of soft-bodied polyps

each no thicker than a dime, up and over in the agua de azul before

they would become new members of the reef

you’d push me up

from below to surface

where we’d breath big gulps of crisp clouds heralding coming rain

our lungs would expand

for another dive where we’d meet two old sharks

un viejo with one good eye and the other glass

both old codgers vowed aloud that very morning

to celebrate a seaful kindness all day long

we would be so lucky!

they’d tell us

how far off course we’d come

and how to find our way

But we’d seen again that lover’s beach on the west side

we’d known it by its seven mile stretch of white

in just the direction we were not heading

you’d pull me up after you onto the delicate shore

cause you’d want me do cartwheels

along the soft hips and thighs of sand folding

into dunes

and sing of how the poppies

growing in your hair were mountain yellow in la luz de la luna

our footprints

would leave silver flecks along the water line

like bioluminescence sparkling the sea with neon blue

we’d decide to swim home in the cold crisp purple moonlight

of the sea between the tempestados

strengthening to howl

but then we’d be safe

because those two old sharks

told us the way home