Huntington Beach

The war ships bobbing off the coast.
                         The outdated oil drills painted
so to blend into the clouds. The gold thin
                         stitched to the water’s edge. Errant dolphin.
Balled up piece of trash on PCH with the list: Eggs, whole milk, butterflies.
                         You cry like a peacock, she says,
every time you get close to being the thing you want to be. 
                         What if God is the people around us:
watching, listening? What a relief that would be. 
                         But it’s so easy to forget we’re not
only being watched by the people in front of us, but
                         also by the people in places we cannot see. What is it
to be allowed back again? On the bike path, my father
                         ahead of me, saying, look at the wind,
meaning: look at the thing doing the moving,
                         moving orange-coned flags holding on for dear life.
The salt rolling off the ocean rots everything in its jowls
                         & my skin so close to turning, I can feel
becoming the metal shard you will learn to protect yourself from,
                        capable of catching the light drawing you in.
Everything rusted is a story beginning
                        once upon a time, I was young, standing in front of the ocean,
beneath the sun without consequence or query
                        for time, just standing, looking out into the thing
unaware of its indifference. There’s something Greek in that. Did Odysseus need the monsters more
                        than they needed him? Does it matter? A kind of antiquity
in that line of thinking but also something very American. Akin to sparklers.
                        They only dance if you light them & wave. Birds do not
abandon their young merely because of human touch.
                        This & so many other myths my mother breaks
in her search for palatable colors, for mixing,
                        for making what was lost whole again.