Pippa

Winding our way up the Pacific coastline

the air carries a taste of salt; sharp pelagia

cutting through us like an open wound.

Between us, there’s erosion:

a millennia of tided saliferous strata—stones

whittled from Pangaea, a passing through hands.

Pippa’s in the passenger seat, exhausted;

her hair caught in the wind

like wild firefish tangling a trawl net.

We crossed San Simeon, Cambria, Morro Bay—

our load sinking and sagging in this old Passat.

Glasses of merlot heavy in the evening,

half-heated abalone shucked at dawn.

Towards the northwest we approached 680 miles

of silence, each mile a settling of fog—

a churning froth leaving us unresolved.

While contemplating Hobie—how he would

restore a vintage Sheraton settee:

1. Mark the grooves along the cyma curve before dismembering.

2. Disguise any nicks in the grain as the wearing of time.

3. Scar the gilt to varying depths with a pinpoint.

4. Let the paraffin set in after reassembly.

Absolve me, I prayed, against uncertain heaven

and all certain hell—a harp string of light

lashing my back, a rapturous throe of waves

washing the moment.

When does the plunging heart-shock me again?

Resuscitate me back to Goldie’s on 25th and Lex?

Like the shore, the cairn wears away naturally.

“What now?” Pippa asked,

breaking the silence.

Mother’s hair, once wet from the storm,

her packing me in under the umbrella.

Rain streaking across our cheeks.

“We’re getting somewhere,” I said,

eroding.