Taking The Beach

The dead wash up on shore
As if they know no other way.
In a daydream we
Walked by them
Smelly in surreal sunlight.
You point a light-gathering device
At their glistening bulges
And hundreds of thousands of
Numbers (values, they might be called)
Become remembered by something without a soul.

I roll over in the dark
And we are having dinner on a boardwalk
Out of a paper bag
Leopard-spotted with oil.
The severed heads of bright red roses
Bob in the breakers in mimic of lotuses.
I know there are wars in the world.
This shall not be one of them.

Painful blue sky snaps into view
As the wind takes your towel.
Riding the half-shell your hair is too short
To conceal what you are offering.
And I am Guido leaning back in his chair
Clapping like a melted tail of film
In the unattended reel
God left running when they figured out sex.

Now eyelids brush a lid in the black
And our elbows waltz into pine boards.
Oxygen grows into a diminishing return
But the dreams get heavier.
Names for two people mean less and less.
Out on the sea
Life exhales a cloud of roses
For the camera only after for us.