Zipper Skin

I disconnected for a while, a week, to dip into the white hot book of days ten degrees north of the Equator. Each morning rising like mango-scented Pomona, blooming in the flame of day. I was not eager to return to the gray days of winter, the rough texture of wool socks and hard-soled shoes. I anticipated a moss-slick snow-salted wall of melancholy.

I had not taken Pacazo with me. It was too unwieldy to manage, too solid to be thrown carelessly in a canvas sack, tossed lightly on hot sand, to read with wet hands. A week without a computer, without a phone, without access, without required reading. Free to dream under the shadows of passing clouds.

If I asked my mother to select one photo of me as a child, her favorite photo, which would she choose and how long would she have to think about it? These clementines peel so easily, the skin bright and flexible, ripping easily under a thumb nail. In Costa Rica there was a cave that you could explore at low tide but at high tide it transformed into a maw of swirling chaos and noise. You could only see as far as the water would retreat. You could only hear the ocean. It occurs to me that everything can be wonderful and still no one is happy.

The weak light of winter hurts my eyes. I want to crawl into a coconut, wave my fingers at the feeding pelicans, count the devil rays as they fly into the wavy heat of the bay.