this poem will not take you anywhere
choose a path (one 1, one 2, one 3, one 4, one 5) to get a sense of california. or read it in one line. or don’t:
words acquire their meaning relative to other words in a category
by extension then if east is east and west is west, then a palm
tree’s frilled silhouette is a symbol of some other phrase
denoting a state where the desert and ocean conjoin to form
grasping at another palm means little else than a want to connect
across these useless and frantic places. i was looking for
the shore’s coalition, small cafes with sandy outcroppings
and naval academies gated in, the grass yellowed by a footstep.
a place where memory can thrive. in oxnard, when the sun set
over the water and dogs were running rampant, i knew
a better way of surviving the heat. the sweat beads curse
the parts of my shoulders attacked by sun, cannot be soothed.
this secret to leaving: masked at the airport, strangers huddled
in estrangement at the baggage claim, and i sought out a suitcase.
i had found something else, a thing beyond all imaginings.
a set of categories where no words could stay, and no
mindsets could be changed, and the waves ahead
continued to sweep the ocean floor.
cafes, none were open anyway, none, and the evening broke
into millions of pieces in protest.
images could stick, and the evening broke
again and again and again and again
pieces no pieces were saved from this memory
and the moving lifted all but the core of me to somewhere else.
a response to a misdirected prompt
