Seratonia II

You and Eve are flying

in the backseat of my roommate's BMW.

It’s parked

by the beach with the bass up. Acid

Rap oozing out the windows.

*

It’s only a piece of paper,

you tell me, smiling in the reflection

of the rearview mirror. I watch

the black of your pupils

seep into blue-

green and brown speckled irises.

Islands, I think, are made

this way.

*

We cross barefoot at low

tide– pools of green

aquatic creatures

mashing between our toes.

*

My damp white tee shirt;

you see through to my rib.

*

You pull up a hand

full of Merritt Island,

lift it to my nose– salt, leaf rot,

wet moss,– and whisper,

we are here.

*

As grains of sand and

water falls from your eyes

you tell me,

whether or not you live

your dreams will be determined
in the moment

you seemingly don’t achieve them.

or earth wants everything that you are

or I want everything that you are
or just fuck me

without saying a word.

*

Eve is lying inside the roots of a tree. In her eyes

it’s all verbs. The bark doesn’t have cracks like skin. The bark

cracks like skin. Roots weaving, ants swarming– the information

multiplies. Ones and zeros crawl over gray ridges and folds,

turning them black.

*

I’m singing Songs to Survive the Summer

to help you survive the come down. The sea sprays

on our rock ledge and the sun sets and I’m glad

that we are not so far north as to hear the Stellar’s Jay

cry thief! when sour juices drip yellow from our mouths,

,not in the least bit venomous, and you laugh when I sing

we are the song death takes its own time singing because you don’t

think death is the sort to smile and sing and recite dust-covered poetry,

and I don’t think death is in anything, especially not in the transparent

stain left on your cheek after Eve kissed you, or in the way you silence

me with your tongue and your lips.

*

It’s only a piece of paper,

you tell me.