I'll breathe my last

On Laguna Beach, collateral

Damage with sand in my mouth,

Biding the tide until Orville locks

His shop of Apollo patches and rattles

Keys down the boardwalk.

The ceremony

Will be simple, tiny silver wings

For my eyes and an astrosextant

Leaned against my temple;

Orville knows

I lost sight of the easy

Septembers when we all slept

Together; television truths

Were movies, fiction by distance.

The smell of mortar never reached the mattress

Or a runway field where we found cover

Among Christmas lights, fallen like a Chicago night

Grid and skies, never empty.

Who needed leaves to change?

We had red and white pinhead pulses

Floating, lagging behind our own

Grass-bound cadence.

I never thought

This much in the shower with you. The taste

Of soap and salt raised

No images of high school gym triages, cluttered

With the neighborhood dead.

And when my forehead went numb,

My jaws stretched by your urgency,

I reached for a bottle,

Not shrapnel.

Everything's changed

The words ticker by, right

To left, beneath television truths.

Left to right if you're

An evil bastard

Growls a sidewalk sentry

At the end of the bar. He scratches

His stars and bars skullcap and leans

Into the cathode glow;

Sweat and beer dribble down

His shirt, double-dotting the "i"

Of "United We Stand."

I watch the words rise and fall

Until the ringing in my ear bends

Into an end-of-broadcast-

Day anthem.

Nothing's the same

Septembers fade

With the marine layer over Highway 1, leaving

Winter boots and perfect skirts, half-mast

Below skies, empty

As balconies with tattered

Flags that welcome

The tide, distract

The sextant with their own

Stars and wave away my body,

Dead and split-lipped as the end

Of autumn.