The heat wave killed—baked—the mussels
in the shallow Pacific tides. Peace, muscle:
metaphors I guess, offering up
ironic wince, real grief—
our longings in conflict with each other
leave a stink. Withered sea star,
with your broken purple arms (or points)
no one intended this. And mostly
no one sees what even happened,
our imaginations hardly bother,
you could be a cookie lying there,
photographed not on a beach but in a pastry case:
delicacy, intimacy, apostasy, emcee
lega, pira, falla, immedia