Surf City
       

On the bronzed trays in the open-air bars,
horse's head is served
and the tray-light matches the thighs
of the statue stepping topless from the sea.
A golden coin with her face in profile
crosses over in the cormorant's beak.
Mattresses float by on the water
sailed by cross-legged children
singing their sweet alouettes,
and watching the wavering gods on shore
hauling silicon into shimmering mounds.
So romantic, these midsummer days:
the jug-bearing servants embossed
on the cool sarcophagi of the CFOs,
a huge faint moon in a blueberry sky,
the seasonal waters in which one can flush
his scalp and beard of all ash and dust
from the great libraries of the past.
To hear the cry of Merlin
from the bath house is a thrill.
To see Casper disrobed and spying on bathers
from his tower of World Books piled in a stack!
Through the grand flume of the clouds,
a new fleet of Innisfrees takes to the sky
over the heads of the city planners,
over the balustrade to the pier,
over the infants flipped onto their backs
reading the style guide, taking its quiz.
Ah, the double-stream soda guns.
Ah, the gondolas chained to the jetty.
The horses' manes still flecked with sand,
and two girls for every boy.

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Copyright © 2018 Peter Mishler All rights reserved
from Fludde
Sarabande Books
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission