Last Tango in Shangri-La

Sound Check
The late afternoon sky was like something
Miss Montana 1979 spilled on her bikini
out near the ice machine
at the Sea Garden Motel
in Pismo

Under the Influence
The light was all
                  nickels & dimes
                              dancing across the pavement
inside the sound of gears grinding
                  just a block from the beach

Adjusting the Float
                  The sunset haze
                              reaching for the
                                          pulse of the tide
            with compression dings
            in silver mist
                              propped against a chainlink fence
it was like the Ark of the Covenant
dissolving in a shot glass
all smudged with lipstick

In the depths of the purple sea

A chunk of beach concrete
            & a small carved jade
to set against the weather
                        anywhere but here

Like a whistle in the dark
when no one's listening

There's an underlying lie that begs to
difference when in fact all's
too precious to matter for more than
a fractured second (if even)

& the song comes round again
on the sunnyside of a failed rhyme
that I know you know could be
rescued at the last minute by a
simple misplaced syllable

Now it's only this slanted light & air
trembling
                "Hello my name is Mustafa"
                "I come from Cairo"
                "I came to fix the pipes"

It is what it is

Pale shadows bump & grind among damp

palm trees & their muffled voices…

“How many candle-lit beach scenes does it take

to pry the lid off your Peruvian kimono?”

The sunlight filtering down thru the

everpresent haze.

The Colonel told me that I had eyes crazed from

a thousand years of killing whales.  I took it as a

            compliment & put on my sunglasses.

The sky was scrawled with lipstick

& I was burning matches to keep warm while

reaching for your hand because you know

we’re both alone.