little apocalypse
beach blanket bingo on bikini island
By the time your rowboat floats from the field, the bomb
yields a thousand tiny blue crabs, a couple hundred sword fish.
The men on the beach are all wearing gray, are all cutting out pictures
of beauty queens and lining them up on their bunks. Say what you will,
but I’ve seen their dirty fingers gigging into the dark thighs of women.
Spilling their gin rickys and pissing in the streets.
They pretend to be astonished, but carelessness makes their bellies soft as cuttlefish,
the artificial light of barracks glossing their teeth paper white.
What vertebrate things harbors beneath their hearts, the dance cards of a thousand debutantes
waving in the breeze? What rising tide turns flame, then fury, then five and dime?
Their wives all angelfood cake and maribou slippers. The coconut trees bending in the heat.