Cleverer than the vaguest hint
skin taunts by wrinkling. I drive
because it's dark in the car,
and, easy, I can see because I can't.
Where is the beach where the boy
unwilled all friends? Later, he scooped
a baby bird back to the nest
he watched its mother stitch. Where
are the twigs once went round and round?
My skin grooving into deltas,
rolling to peaks in disinterested animation -
where can it disappear?
The smudged sounds behind the dunes -
"I don't need anyone" -
what mimicry had license to
suggest this to him?
Empty pockets continue to sink deeper
into the waters of rented umbrellas and sand-
wiches. Mother bird eyes a foreign shape,
from a distance in a distance.
I admire downtown past midnight,
vestigial wires and poles sag straight
as arrows. Long as I don't read E
in this sand and dark - these twigs
remain circles - one more beach
raked clean in low tide
waits for his misshapen letters - more than waits,
rolls out to itself once more,
allows him to dance his sticks true,
for the first time. And later, shines over.
� 2004 by john e
