Sunset on Sunset

It was summer then―
a glitch in the highlight reel
slipping past yet another lost horizon
with Hawaiian guitars echoing
intact
              as you sip your coconut milk & tequila
through a straw
& the voodoo buddhist catholic witchdoctor
speaking in sign language says
              “Your thoughts should be pure
              no matter what you think”
& I thought an authentic life-size sea monster
deposited in the backyard by the early morning ocean fog
(Michoacan)
                              with delicate rainshadow beadwork

All my life I danced it that way
                              the loop, the wedge, the hook
              one foot in a watery grave & the other
                                                on the edge of something really vast
like a vast undiscovered continent that
disappeared
                              long before I was born