{"id":96974,"date":"2021-06-26T20:12:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-27T00:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/?p=96974"},"modified":"2021-06-26T20:12:00","modified_gmt":"2021-06-27T00:12:00","slug":"poem-12-an-oasis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/2021\/06\/poem-12-an-oasis\/","title":{"rendered":"Poem 12: An Oasis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>An Oasis<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>Cool Water <\/em>played on our living room stereo like a distant<\/p>\n<p>desert breeze while we roughhoused and did acrobatics<\/p>\n<p>with Dad. He lifted us up into the air one at a time, our bellies<\/p>\n<p>pressed into his feet while he lay on the carpet on his back.<\/p>\n<p>We held our arms and legs out stiff as we flew. I wondered<\/p>\n<p>how it would feel to go a whole day <em>without the taste of water, <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>cool water. <\/em>My brother and I take turns soaring my dad\u2019s legs<\/p>\n<p>above that dry barren land. I know the album by heart.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s one of only four or five we had, and it warned us<\/p>\n<p>there\u2019s <em>a devil not a man <\/em>who wants to hurt us and a desert<\/p>\n<p>where men in white shirts and khakis crawl in their own sweat<\/p>\n<p>toward the minty promise of water. My father lifts me<\/p>\n<p>out of harm\u2019s way, the cells in our mouths bulky with moisture.<\/p>\n<p>I am seven and am learning how to pencil my wants<\/p>\n<p>in a diary. I didn\u2019t know one day I\u2019d have to learn<\/p>\n<p>how to let go of this man who taught me how to fly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An Oasis &nbsp; Cool Water played on our living room stereo like a distant desert breeze while we roughhoused and did acrobatics with Dad. He lifted us up into the air one at a time, our bellies pressed into his feet while he lay on&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3235,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3235"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96974"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96977,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96974\/revisions\/96977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}