Overture
the beach's denouement echoes off of drift wood
and sea foam, ebbing away from abandoned shacks
and shark-bitten surf boards; a portrait of the lost,
a lingering smell of caught lobster.
a surf bum ambles down the shore, scoping
for foot prints caught in between sand
and the white shirt hanging from a palm leaf,
arms flapping about, the sound a phantom's love song.
his sandals flip-flop as he walks, the soles melting
beneath the sun's duality, hot and nostalgic. he looks out,
aims his surf board and tastes salt again,
warming his toes in azure water,
letting what's left of tide take him out to sea. he drifts
to the shadow at the horizon's last verse,
an island's back arched in exhaustion: time has no mercy.
he finds coconuts and springs, fruits and embers.
he builds a portico from ancient palm,
carves his runes with the yellowing shark tooth
from round his neck. he worships Pele and smiles
at her clever wit and full breast, soft like the moon.
but again the denouement, an aqueous conclusion. its refrain crawls
in his ear on the backs of sand craps, his skin and
bones and torn shirt capturing its echo, expressing the sand of his beach
as its slips through an hour glass, time calling "timber" at the fall of last palm.