Fire on the Coast, Fire in the Trees

What birthed you besides the mother: First the wrong name announced, then the wrong name answered, and the wrong name toppled. The right name means very little. Crossing the bridge above the bay, a black dog pushing between the overgrown rattle grass. A tourist climbing the crumbling Goat Rock and the ordinary second before they are both swept away. Don’t forget the window screen cut open into the dark, dark yard. The lack of your mother’s boyfriend with his gray parrots in their glass cage, no more stained glass. Absence is only important because of the creatures amassing around its edge. Three flights of stairs now the usual. Also the girl you don’t like accidentally stepping on a seagull in the parking lot, killing the bird. She is a crucial number too. You and your friends dedicating yourselves to bees for a while. Bare knuckle fighting one another in the drying yellow hills. Don’t forget the movement. Then the stop. Sometimes the quiet fog drove in and you didn’t leave the house. Remember the girl with the curly blonde hair holding your hand with hooked fingers. Fire on the coast and fire in the trees. The right name eventually comes through teaching you a new red tongue. You belong in mud so think it sucks your boots off. Up north the water is never warm enough and no one goes swimming. There is the mirror of a forgotten birthday, it is not because of the whiskey. You’re so dear with your steel grip of logic holding onto things. One February it snows so hard your grandfather doesn’t leave bed. Why can’t your biker phase become a permanent one?