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The Marine Layer - 2nd Street, Long Beach |
Leaning out
of my window, my cigarette burns slowly,
charming the early morning fog
as it wraps it's arms around the entire area
of down town Long Beach,
making out with the tar laden breath
from my mouth, flirting with the fallen ash.
Below me
two surprised shadows
stop kissing,
they whisper a nervous laughter,
holding each other more tightly,
more solid than the light heartedness
of the hedonistic molecules in the air.
I pretend I haven't noticed them,
look into the distance, where they will be heading soon,
continue with my own nicotine dreams.
I wonder if they have just met,
they have that awkward posture
of new love;
the fear, the joy, and the water particles
of the marine layer disco dancing around them
like wedding confetti.
I wonder, also, if they are going to feel the same
when the afternoon Southern Californian sun burns away
the last of that which hides what they will have to face
in the coming heat wave of traffic jam nihilism.
What will
the cruel light of day
reveal?
I stand behind this city
wide cloud,
pondering on what responsibility I have
to enlighten them of my own experience,
of divorce, of bitterness, of resentment,
of the careless use of that four letter word
people spray from their mouths
in the hope to create rainbows.
My cynical junk yard tongue remains silent.
I will just finish my cigarette,
throw it down the toilet,
and spare them a hurling doubt.
copyright 2017
RK
Wallace |
