"Tiki Gods" by Mark Bryan
Rochelle Arellano
For Dan
"In the end the sea
takes everything."
You, with your
coy, gladsome
blue-eyed smile, setting
fire to ripened wheat-
gold hair should know.
All the quiet plans
and crazy schemes,
in the end the sea takes.
Everything is just
that. Nothing floats back
to shore to be
retrieved
in the end,
coy, gladsome, blue-
eyed smile, all
are swept away
leaving
the body bared like
an empty beach
casting about driftwood
limbs and everything from
crazy schemes to
the quiet plans,
setting fire to
this body
like ripened wheat
so that it
trembles and shakes
at everything, in
the end, the sea takes.
Bio:
Rochelle Arellano resides in Gilroy, California with her husband and their two daughters.
