I am from hot ovens

Kneading dough at 5 am

Flour on my homework

I am from sable brushes and hippie schools

I write —

Breaking pencils, filling pages, painting and drawing myself whole again

Ink stains on my shirt and hands.

I am lying in the sun reading Vogue

Tie-dyed socks

And henna on my skin

I am from planting roses and admiring the first lilac bloom

Soon our house is filled with vases and jars of nasturtiums and sweet peas —

And the peonies are taller than my brother

I am from cutoff jeans and rollerblades

Bare feet and biking around town with my friends, my sisters

I am from loving my mom’s music

Dido and Coldplay and 10,000 Maniacs

I am from rainy days and dancing on polished wood

I am from foreign movies — Shall We Dance and The Girl from Paris

I am from running on the beach

Finding shells

And swimming in cold water

I am not afraid to get salt in my eyes

I am from the sea

The spray that stings

The endless gray that churns

Tossing boats and fish and lives

I am from the mountains —

Mountains like the jagged edge of a broken eggshell

Early in the morning when the sun hasn’t risen

And they are black.

I am free

Free like the gulls that circle the harbor

Where I am also from

I am from ancient photographs of people I know as surrogate parents

In their twenties — I was not there then —

But I am here now

Sitting on the porch where the pictures were taken

I am from driftwood and dirt and dark skies in the winter

I am from the trees and birds and water and sand and ice

I am from rocks and old beer bottles and blue rugs and eggshells and singing

I am from long ago

An old way of life

Fishing and working and sweat and my father’s bloody hands at the end

Of the day. o