John Keats Sheds His Full Metal Kelp Jacket

A dumptruck full of rain is
rumbling up the coast
highway & I’m nailed to the
kool-aid cross
thinking of sliding down the ladder
of a true believer
before the light changes

              In Mexico there are tears so
                                                thick the rain can’t
                              wash them away
              while here we just stand on the
                                                                cement beach
                                                scanning the horizon
                              thru a coke bottle telescope

Twenty years later
the rain snaps the sky in half like throwing bricks
into an empty mirror

              & we’re still balanced on the
                                                business end of a machete
                              studying a psychosomatic
                                                                map of paradise
                              tattooed on the surface of a puddle