Named After Clouds

Lit up like the entrance to an underwater neon patio

a silver lining with a troubled past

e n t r a n c e d

although the telepathic rhyme scheme remained intact.   Still, they wanted some sort of identification.   All I had was my tattoo & a seagreen pebble I picked up off Venice Beach 30 years ago.   It was late in the afternoon & the autumnal haze had taken on a luminous, perhaps corrosive, hue.   Green, magenta, turquoise with pearl inlay, & a kind of pervasive translucent iridescence that only total exhaustion can produce.   There was a crew of dancing skeletons taking a shortcut loop down the alley & across the vacant lot.   One of them must have recognized me because I was allowed to go, wherever I wanted, as long as it was away from there.   I turned the corner & took a step,
              (not quite knowing how),
                                                out past the glass wall of thunder
                              in my veins.