There was a time I thought a thesaurus was a kind of dinosaur

Although I was hopelessly distracted by Water Moon Kuan-yin

& some rather naive local shrubbery it was the cloud pattern that

kept me guessing

& like those who know or those who don’t but wish they did

those empty waves at the Lane deliver news

of distant storms that died at sea leaving nothing but a soft

sigh to be picked up by a weather satellite & transmitted to palm trees 
along Beach Street

                        as they present an interesting tableau set against the 
hazy blue upholstery of a late summer sky

                            green entanglements notwithstanding

I had a stolen surfboard & a library copy of Songs & Sonnets 

my hands resembled my father’s & my heart was like a Mars bar

melting on the manifold of a ’56 Chevy