Beachniks on the Veranda

The ocean breeze sounds like a
cross between a cello & a harmonica
played through a diesel engine
rumbling down a lonely stretch of the
coast highway on the next-to-last
day of summer
                              & you’re riding shotgun

or maybe it was me
getting all Proustian about bamboo windchimes
& the sunlight hitting the beach at a
45 degree angle

                              just another notch in the pavement
              for the japanese mariachi drill team
                                                that sets the tempo here

              “It’s all about the music”
                                                even when it isn’t
                              although I’m not really listening
as the sun flares out like a feather of excess acetylene
& you do your little grind for me