A
grip of dreamless blonde sand
& all the indulgences wrecked on adrenalin & perfume
drenched in
corrugated steel.
The sky & the
streets slanting down into the sea
just like me
in advance
of a cold breeze off the water
that has
knives in it.
You need not
fear the Eskimos drinking Vietnamese coffee
nor the
waterlogged legions of the dead leaving their damp
footprints on
the concrete.
The
beach is lit with votive candles in glass
jars
painted red & the damp pavement breathes
the same air you & I do.
Draining
the color from telepathic neons
the
tides answer to a mythology
older
than the gravity that sleeps in every stone
cobbled
along the shore.
Something we don’t
understand & only half believe
although
you would probably dance to it if given
half
a chance.
We hit the road for Malibu
or Damascus I
can’t remember exactly
which.
A pharmacy in Chinatown,
fish tacos in a parking lot
near the beach. Redemption wasn’t in the cards.
Stagelit streets
descending as in Tangier, or Todos Santos,
or an Albuquerque by the
sea.
We slept on a stone
floor in El Rosario
awakened in the dark by
the thunder of the surf.
I may have been reaching
out to you
with two or more hands
at that very moment
bending like a spoon to
the flame.
A heel of
sidewalk groaning with albatrossian hang-time
bedecked with
seaweed brocade. A surf manual
translated into
Church Latin. Chop suey w/a Spanish
accent.
Straight from the bottle that stuff
lingers like a
puff of Papal smoke.
So promulgated between tides.
There
was sand in my ear & a million reasons
the air was seasoned with saltmist &
car exhaust
& your heart was like a flotation
device…
The
road north was just like the road south
only
played in reverse. I rolled in at
twilight
feeling like Cortez—a real killer.
Nothing
had changed.
