Arts & Leisure

i read your poem over and over in this landscape of women women purring on balconies overlooking the indigo sea my mother's blue taffeta dress is black as the sea she glides out my door to the beach where sleek white boats are anchored under a full, luscious moon still i am still the wind outside my window my mother's ghost evaporates in the long atlantic night i listen to the radio every chance i get for news of your city's latest disaster everything here the color of honey and sand everything there verges on catastrophe a constant preoccupation with real estate everything here a calm horizon taut bodies carefully nurtured oiled & gleaming hair & skin i read your poem over and over turning my head from prying eyes the low hum of women singing in another room i switch stations on the radio turn up the volume i almost touch the air buzzing electricity james brown "live at the apollo" the smooth female d.j. interrupts bo diddley groaning "i'm a man" it is a joke here in this baby-blue resort where art is a full-time hobby art is what everyone claims to do women sprawl like cats on each other's laps licking the salt off each other's skin and i walk in search of the portuguese fishermen who hide in the scorched trees the bleak, blond dunes that line the highway i imagine you asleep in another city i take your poem apart line by line it is a love letter we wrote each other some time ago trying in vain to pinpoint that first, easy thrill.