After Monterey

So much so that I suddenly ache

I find that I cannot shake the cypress trees from my mind.

Their roots plumb my chest and

Their fronds brush my face

And I long in a daze, a long lethargic daze with a stomach uneasy.

My eyes are drowned and stuck with salt,

My hands are violet from the cold of the waves and

I long in a daze, a long lethargic daze.

I feel ill and frenetically strange, unmoving,

Ever rearranging the position of my frame

To quell the nauseous greedy ache.

Drank herbs in a tea with milk;

Immediately scorned myself.

A gull does not make bad decisions with full consciousness.

A gull simply thinks the plastic to be the fish.

My stomach writhes as if I stand at the edge of a precipice,

The bridge which ends so far, such old and crumbling cliffs;

And a beach so rocky and ragged it calls for pathology,

Tides rough and white and slamming, quite unneighborly.

I crave air clean and cool and fresh and grey.

I wish to break open my sternum like a mussel to absorb

The dwindling day.

Scoop out with a little spoon my innards and then say,

“Enjoy them slowly for they are the entire entree.”