the first thing I notice is the jetty
the waves littered with little feet and bouncing foam and
bobbing buoys of women, two of which
call me to remove my boots
and let water lick clean
old clammy toes

but I walk out on the jetty
past the rock where scuttling children fear their mothers will forget them
past the crop of young fishermen, smiling between tides of beer and
counting the fish they have yet to catch by the worms they have
in their new tackle boxes

past an empty can of Budweiser

past an old bucket of bait that even the gulls wont touch

deeper into the bird **** that paints this rock thumb
pock marked with bowls of orange soup-
carapace and minnow bones

denying a smoke in favor of the ocean’s oyster breath

trading the cooling molten gold of a California beach
for something I was sure would only be found
where this putrid jetty purged into the sea

and I was close

even as you drove me home
I couldn’t forgive you for following me there