If I am

If I am mostly made up of water, then let it be the water of Amelia Island and a steamy hot bath. Let me be gallons of chlorinated water from Mt. Lebanon High School Pool and rainbows of water streaming from the good fountain on the second floor of Fernway School.  Let it be cold water from a yellow Igloo jug during the fifth inning of a tied softball game.  Something rippling from the Chagrin River.   The coffee that has sat between me and my friends at the Stone Oven.  Or the metallic tasting water from the tennis center, especially after that match I played with Erin Pesko when I was sixteen.

If I am made up of connective tissue, then let it be the bungy cord from the luggage rack of the green wood paneled 1975 Ford station wagon.   Let it be the rope and the tape that Tavish wraps around every nook and cranny of his house as he concocted paths to secret treasures.  Let me be made up of the vines that wend their way around the new oaks at River’s Edge.

If I am made of apatite and bones, then let it be straight from the marrow of my ruptured humerus.  Let me be reminded forever and again of the growth inherent in hurt and healing. it be the hollow bone of the heron that swooped down on Nikki and me on the banks of the Cuyahoga River.  Let me be made of the steel rafters of Three Rivers Stadium and a dropped anchor of Chub Cay in the Bahamas.

If I am made of carbohydrates and sugar, then load me up with candy from Kovall’s.  Graeter’s ice cream circa 1983.  And my mother’s sour cream coffee cake served warm from the oven the morning of her annual Christmas brunch.

If I am made of DNA, then let it arch all the way back to the Isle of Silt, the hefty German Reinholds. And give me a strong dose of the ministering Cowans.  I’ll take my dad’s square fingernails and his love of music.  I will give thanks for my mother’s foresty hairline and her artistic taste. I will carry the eggs still in me and release all of the eggs come and gone.   But, honestly, I grieve them, the children I will never mother.

If I am made up of free radicals, then let it be so.  Let me be more free and more radical. 

If I am made of gases, please let it be the air of Abiuqui or the woods behind Dennison Hall at Miami University.  I also will take liters and liters from the swirling drives in the Rabbit Convertible, especially the air east, far out Shaker Blvd. And the air in the words spoken and heard from the pulpit at Forest Hill Church.

If I am made up of small particles of other things too, like cofactors and ions, let them be made of beach glass, especially red and bright aqua blue.  And the pea gravel from Middle Path at Kenyon College.  Let them be the first peak at the baby toes of my nieces and nephew.  Let there be stubby chewed pencils, especially those used during Monday poetry play times, and wadded up bubble gum wrappers left on my front porch.