Sunset in Salinas, 2003

The broken pier held us up to it
Like two trinkets on a mantelpiece

Father ran from his beach blanket
Slapping sand off the camera’s lens

Got a splinter in his right heel
Still reached us a heartbeat too late

The sun had slipped under the horizon
Like a toddler under bedsheets

She was a firefly at dusk
Ducking out before being captured

Father took the photo anyway
Said he could paste the sunset into it with Photoshop

Ennui in Paradise

Despite what you have heard
I have seen entities such as ours
Meandering in circles
Striding through open fields of wheat and memories
As palominos
Golden
Shining in their finest hour

The stone throwers who chased them away
Were mistaken
The reflections they had aimed to shatter
Were in fact their own

In reality it was my voice that called
Out from your diary when
Years earlier your hopes still had an edifice

Now I am destitute
Destined to be a giver with empty pockets
As the chorus corrupts and
Obstructs the view of intention
From a hill atop instruction

I have seen them on that precipice
A million inscrutable questions laid out
With two arms
Two legs
And no eyes with which to record
The space where
We had been promised a proper resurrection

Despite what you’ve heard
Those who have migrated to their own slaughter
Were not among the innocent
They had been warned
Of the storm that received them

But the swarm does not trust
A child’s tongue
They feign blindness
When the mess is made
They complain of the stench
And point to others to fix the leak
In the roof of the world

I will not join this blind lynch mob
I must commit myself to the displaced
And proceed with the task of
Savoring you with the feverish abandon
Of a muskrat cornered
I must set to the vocation of kneeling before you
Tipping my hat
And surrendering to one final comfort
As the scales tip
And my faith in this world
Dies sluggishly like a starving mutt
And my faith in you rises
Like a phoenix from its own ashes