Reflected in a shallow, faded pink nevermind of concrete

A dark, rose-tipped lament
in the heart’s house

              the approval process for
              a sub-prime future exile

all bliss azul for the jailbait
in rubberband bikinis
              who don’t even know they
stepped out of the 1st book of
Ovid’s Metamorphoses

              I was given to coked-up knuckle games
              shaving while looking into a picture of
              Walt Whitman
              & singing my poems in sideways latin
              to the abalone sky

while Our Lady of Wet Sand
swims downstairs wearing a
black t-shirt & a pair of Ray-Ban
night-vision goggles

She had erased the past as well as the future
set fire to her board in the parking lot
& broke off a corner of the sky just to
prove that it couldn’t be done

              I could only sit there & stare
              at a stand of eucalyptus
              shimmering in the sun

              to me it looked like the broken
              silver blue surface
              of the sea