August

              In truth, I wish my birthstone was any other 
green—a granite oval furred with moss,
              flint effaced by lichen: each proof of water.

What does a peridot prove? My birth
              was in a sea of sweat. My mother, milkless, 
fevered dry by August heat. I drank

              water and dwindled—ribs withering.
When I didn’t cry, I coughed.
              As my mother sees it, that marked

my first affliction. Years later, I’d long
              to rub the forearms of my high-school 
football team—to see if my fingers sparked

              against each hair that lanced 
their pubescent skin. In truth,
              the only joining of hands came

during recitation of the Lord’s Prayer 
              before Communion. None
of the stained glass fitted to the lintels

              above the apse was green. Jesus bled carmine,
Mary wept cobalt, the halos encircling
              their skulls glowed like jaundiced eyes.

I was born in the season of drought,
              brown eyed and sick. Maybe that’s why 
I always reach toward something lush:

              in every peridot is an ocean choked 
with algae. Not what I want. Not coral
              blooming through cracked seabed,

parakeet plumage, a forest dark as the sweat- 
              soaked jersey of the fullback who
once, in ninth grade, wished me a happy birthday.

Read more from Issue 18.1.