We exist in
unkeepable bodies

and in the bending over
we decompose

for we are
are but the
memory of grief

that soft bodies
leave when they die.

Oh, when the sun yields child
to the soft caress of the night

After the sun has gone.
After the sun has gone.

That lifts the wind
after the sun has gone.

The last  of wonder and awe
That turns life
from a beach shell echo

to  a cornucopia
after the sun has gone.

Life without a shell must
shake out the shadows

live full to overflowing
less it dry after the sun has gone

leaving the child still, beautiful silent
in the beach tide after the sun has gone.  

After the sun has gone.

Shout into the eyes
of sunlight
of the boy who dances in the light.

Every dragon’s death
foretells this child
onto even the smallest realm.

The Phoenix is an ally
to the boy
who forges worlds.

The stars proclaim his shine
this boy who dances in the light.

He is the boy
who flies
into the sun
and does not dissolve.

His chariot with flashing wheels
races with the rainbow.

He is the boy who
sells the golden trinkets
with 1001 truths in the bazaar.

Even the baubles know not all his stories
of pirates, pashas, tigers and kings.

After all has been vended
this boy with the wondrous tongue
will wipe the sweat of his brow
into the most damask bottle
and proclaim it genie’s breath.

The rain chuckles on the rooftop
and the sound carry’s down the house.

The oaks in their amber raincoats
hiss in the water’s tickle.

Their sinuses suckle the drops to veins
then shiver off the excess.

The wild summer streams are
beginning their running joke.

The drought retreats with a frown
to the applause of the scorch grass.

The old man and his grandson watch
the slapstick of nature from the doorway.

They wave to their bemused neighbors
in their rockers watching the show.

The old man hands the child an umbrella
and watches him join the laughter all around.

The child delights in the rain drumming
smiles on the harlequin cloth.

We turned around and she was there
stranded between shore and sea,
beach filled with the oily smell of  whale,
her dark tonnage serenading the waves
for the comforting echoes of others,
her great fins offering sand flowers
to the Great Ocean God for her salvation.

We mistook her motion for the final dance,
the soprano voice for a lamentation,
the agitation of her great tail for death gasps
for in our experience we are slippery skin
creatures destined to loneliness,
defined to be Ahabs to her kind.

The incoming tide heard her prayer and
navigated the sand to slowly release her to
re-float with the high tide, the deeper water
where she be well with herself.

And we sat on the beach and watched
her swim out knowing that
the sea can easily swallow a whale.

The heat is a pendejo querida
a street full of melda de vaca, mi amor
steaming, stinking, like a hungry puta
who takes mi dinero and gives me *****.
Sleep with me chica. Cool me down
in el rio d su chocha.  Por favor.  Por favor.
Mariposa de su womb. Pajaro en mi boca.
Do not steal my crumbs and fly away.
Tu coolo is una ballena.  Lo adoro.
It’s as hot as the clouds that stampede
like los cascos de los caballos salvaje.
Your centavo feminino blends with
the eibas y el calor making me want to
comer naranjas amargas contigo en la cama
or a picnic with you a orillas del rio del Paraiso
watching the lotus bloom.

Translation of Spanish:

pendejo querida- male ***** hair, my love
melda de vaca,  mi amor- cow ****, my love
puta- *****
mi dinero- my money
chica- girl/woman
el rio de su chocha.  Por favor- the river of
your *****. Please.
Mariposa de- butterfly of
pajaro en mi boca- bird in my mouth
Tu coolo- your ***
una ballena- a whale
Lo adoro- I love it
los cascos de los caballos salvaje- the hooves of
wild horses
centavo feminino- womanly scent
ceibas- kapok tree found in Puerto Rico
el calor- the heat
comer naranjas amargas contigo en la cama- eat bitter oranges with you in bed
a  orillas del rio del Paraiso- by the shores of the river of Paradise.

The Pandemic has closed
the theaters and cinemas.

On stage a lone actor commits
suicide in the loneliness.

On screen the two lovers run to each
other against the march of soldiers.

The actor’s death is an extravagant fake,
a nod to the art of dying a good stage death.

The lovers perform ****** asphyxiation
until the man seems to fall deeply asleep.  

The actor pulls the dagger from his neck,
red silk flowing freely from his throat.

In the light motes coming from the projector
Sada realizes that Kichizo has died.

The red silk now entombs Sensei Omiya
like a gown as he reaches out to Sada’s cry.

Sada kisses Kichizo for the final time
as she removes Kichizo‘s blade.

Sensei Omiya drowns in a swell of red silk.
“Sada, my child, what shame have you brung?”

Sada cuts Kichizo’s ***** off cleanly carrying
it inside her as she madly wanders Tokyo.

The projector clicks off, the house lights fade.
The transformation is done.  
The performance is over

Notes:
The lovers story is based on the plot of the Japanese film In the Realm of the Senses by Nagisha Oshima.  The theater story is intended to be a subplot of the lovers plot. The theater plot is also intended to invoke images of Japanese Kabuki theater.