Everything is dying here 

Even the alopeciac pines 

seem sea sick in their staggering sway 

Poor scurvy-stricken pirates. 

May they drink rum and belch 

bawdy crescendos one day soon. 

 

The white-washed facades  

of the endless abandoned strip malls 

Endure the perpetual lashings  

of Dante’s Sunshine State. 

Their pale orphan faces 

stare blankly 

but not without pain. 

 

It is only right that the ocean remains  

magnetic here; 

Both hurricane harbinger and iridescent  

temptress, 

She beckons us into her bermuda triangle  

death trap. 

See the way that even the skyscrapers lean  

seaside, 

just like Chopin’s Miss Pontellier. 

 

I wish I could traipse my way to the shore 

with such ease as Edna; 

Only to look, never to die. 

Except it is so hot, 

and I am afraid 

of ending up like the man in the median 

lying concerningly still 

collapsed under his bicycle  

in a mangled steaming pile. 

The body is dark and foreboding 

like twisted hickory limbs. 

 

Everything warps towards death here. 

Even the familiar corridors  

of my family’s fading home 

seem to have stilled their full-house buzzing. 

A wheezing, skeletal frame 

is all that remains. 

 

Life force is a mirage here. 

The delusion remains 

just far enough out of reach  

to sustain the yearning. 

We will cross this desert 

for the rest of our lives, 

passing the same burnt out neon arcade sign  

framed with flamingos 

Saying:  

FREE GAME  

WITH EVERY PURCHASE!