Intravenous Therapy

the nurse says pick an ocean
& i say Mediterranean because
i've never been there but
it sounds wild & warm. a beach 
with white sand & fruit washing
up on the shore. she fills
the IV bag with the entire
Mediterranean ocean & tells
me i need to take it all in.
drip by drip. the sun enters 
my blood with stories of bare feet
& red burnt skin. all the pieces
of fruit are unripe & i hold
them up high asking god to do 
his magic & make them sweet.
when i was younger i would dare
myself to eat the skin off 
unripe plums, bitter scabs.
i tossed their pits into
the ocean & the trees grew
underwater. i feel the pits 
crawling through the tube
like beetles marching
into my blood, planting themselves
somewhere deep. i open my mouth
so they will have sun. i ask
you what those things are called
that keep time & you say an hourglass? 
& i say yes, an hour glass. 
the nurse sets an hourglass 
on the windowsill
& says this is how long you have left.
it doesn't seem very long but
then again it's relative.
i think my hourglass is made of
salt not sand. the family tree
was at plum tree at the bottom
of the ocean & the fruits 
washing up on shore were all
pink people that i don't know
the last names of. the nurses 
says generally family comes
along for things like this & 
i give up & crawl into the sea,
the Mediterranean sea. this is 
the farthest i've been from 
the northeast. there's no car
horns, just my grandmother stirring
the ocean with her one leg 
in the water. i have little desire
to travel not that i can feel
the whole ocean inside me. 
i invite you inside to collect shells.
i felt them each as they expanded
my veins in to currents. i open my mouth
again, only this time it's a tide pool,
my tongue a starfish.
feed me plums.