Soaked strands of your sandy hair

tell no tales about the conditions

when you saw your last sunset.

Perhaps through polarized shades

riding shotgun in a silver low-runner pickup

racing in the straits of Park and Beach Roads,

Enchanted by the sounds of rock music

booming from a recessed panel of speakers,

While the leeward tree-line strobes by

as your “sometimes lover” does the weave

peeling through slower traffic,

His hand caressing your naked thigh

between shifting gears and sharing smokes,

Each inhaling the exhaled smoke for second hits

burning fingers and any plan for the last toke

enjoying the high without words-

Just his nod, your smile,

Enraptured in a smoky curtain of blue-sky dreams.

Submerged braids of your bleached blond hair bloom

in the sunlight, reflected through a floodtide

surging over volcanic rock from a flow long ago,

Carving blown spume and froth

catapulted skyward up the walls of the cove

then the tides recede with singing sands

that tell no tales, no lies, no lessons learned.

Immersed love knots braided in strands

rise with the tide like sea lilies floating

and blossoming as a wave crests,

While damselfish banded with bleached rings

dart between buoyed curls and shadow of hair,

As a limp leg waves in tidal surge and undertow

to fishermen casting lines from the cliff heights

to catch jacks or a green grouper,

Amazed when they foul-hook a queen:

a perfectly cast white-as-marble

toes, heel, leg and thigh and stopping there

to use a rock climber’s rope to climb down

to retrieve line, leader, hook and a lost body

laid to rest on a green mossy ledge,

covering the naked body with a casting net

that is not lifted until the sirens no

longer sound, and the catch is bagged

in zippered plastic bound for the morgue.