Oil of Dew
Are there going to be summer suckers?
—John Ashbery
It’s been ten years
and the sun ain’t.
You know how when
you get sand in your
shoes? Didn’t pack
right. Need shop
ping but can’t in
this blistering sun,
the waves going
lap, the waves
going lap. but I
told you so. X
that out, maybe
it was you that
told me. This
sweltering. The
waves that don’t
go lap lap. The
toes (the sand
between them)
that don’t go
tap tap. This
rolling over.
This beach.
This beach
ain’t nude
and the sun
is rude to you.
So you roll.
You try to
just roll
with it.
roll over
until you
are up
and your
eyes to the
sun at two
in the after
noon. Too
many years
of the same
heat pressing,
the castles of
sand melting
and you burn,
unable as you
are to bronze.
Skin sense
tive to the
lap to the
lap until
you are
dry, dried
up, all
tapped.
If only
you’d an
ounce
more
sap. To
roll like
the body
within, that
burnt-out
lust, your
skin a crisp
and gritty
crust. But
your eyes
from the
hole in the
beach as
you lift
with your
all. Alone
as you are.
Just you
here. No
thing but
old dust.
The castles.
Not even
a moat,
its re
tract
able
bridge.
Every
thing’s
gone
but
the
dried-up
desert hyp
notic land
scaped the
wind-razed
castles of
dust the
dust.
