Saltwater Tango

A dark green occasion beneath
a second-hand grapefruit sky
steeped in heavy breathing
& a kind of bloodshot euphoria

just as when you flip a coin
I always call the darkside
faded slightly turquoise
a look-the-other-way leap
from your cadillac balcony

but to scroll thru
a long line of sunsets
& stagger beneath the rain
like wasted palm trees & Mexican clarinets

sunsets like pearls dissolving in gasoline

lit up the pavement & wet sand
before you turned away
w/eyes like undersea
to reconcile the distance

& the time it takes
inside the shattered chrome seepage
that torqued the beach
w/residual winterized cables
& wrecked veins
embalmed in damp manifestos

semi-tropical & hyperextended

designed to lull you past the coma
because a pair of fog-colored
sunglasses this morning plugged
you into a dime bag of silver linings

as these empty parking lots repeat themselves
so often in fact
& contrary to the haze
reminding me of what you never said
but understood

the way an inverted whisper
rakes the silence
like a ripple on the surface
of a puddle

at the bottom of the sea