Tide pool. North

Gargle back

      the brine. 

                             The tideline 

    shifts 

                  as sunstars

                 
       taste their way

       to water

          

        before they 

        calcify.


Act. 2

The minute marks the hour
The light hounds the day

In a place we both remember
Through an alleyway
Lined with sunlight  and  sand

Behind a chapel filled with plastic chairs
A symphony of pacific ocean waves
So we kissed like lovers, alone at last,

Like explorers at the edge of a fault line
We held each breath a little longer ౼

Wheat fields beneath a summer 
Gust, moist leaves mid-August, parables, 
Mustard seeds, blooming orchids, ice chips
Beneath your tongue, a violin string, the crackle
Of Crème Brule, touching pebbles 
Under water, understanding that the earth revolves
Around a point that revolves around a point  that
Revolves around a point ad infinitum, tasting 
Red wine, collecting maple leaves, drawing 
Elaborate fish on cocktail napkins, blackberries,
The salt on your lips like the ocean—

And as we kissed the sun slowed to a crawl 
          Across the azure sky and across the world
No one said a word nor whimpered nor suffered nor died.     
Act. 3

Memory cannot hold
color    it  folds     within words
tangling in dissolving correlations
where red between carmine
and cinnamon reemerges
blood orange —
 
nothing tastes as sweet as salt
    on mango slices
 
across Havana, tourists watch enraptured
as barkeeps crush 
mint leaves on ice cubes

with slices of lime— barrel aged rum
 
memory tends to play each scene
in gray,  center stage

hues tinge objects at hand
only when held in focus

a mirror, a stone,  the sun setting 
on the pale blue ocean.