After I See Your Post About Visiting L.A.

 

 

I reach out– longing for connection.

When surrounded by seagulls, I look

 

for the first semblance of friend. Not

that we have much to anchor anymore,

 

conversationally. Dolzani’s English class.

I didn’t read assigned books. Didn’t

 

become The Old Man and The Sea. So

many years to make safe passage. My voice

 

was a heavy, closed hardcover, whispering

through class as pages turned, and here

 

I am, strange and estranged, gazing out

over the Pacific, waiting for your response

 

on my seashell phone. Any sign of humanity

meant I would try. You never answer, anyway.

 

I unmoor my flaming boat to the coming

monsoon, scrape my hand against burning

 

plank to gather first ashes. I write my name in

soot. I hold my breath and swoosh into the next

 

life: the hold-on-to-me, the help-me, the drive-

aimlessly-through-your-twenties until arriving,

 

at last, at another confused island, a new

decade of drifting through cloudless nights.