Your red tide
is burning rust,
making newly polished things
out of polished things
we once bonded in lust.
And at the bottom of this ocean door
lay the dead skeletons of dead fish-
their ivory bones gleaming and moored
like pretty faces,
handpicked and carved,
from the prettiest crowd.
So beautiful these dead reminders,
hanging from a Christmas tree-
hanging from a gold chain on my neck-
hanging from your mouth
like a *** of spit ready to fall
into the ocean,
to be drowned.