dream

...and that night I dreamed I was in Mexicali,

on the Salton Sea,

a lake so full of sodium that it is completely toxic and pale.

Dead fish lay about its shores

among a Stonehenge of ripped, disgorged inflatable rafts

shaped like bunnies

and smiling kitties

and inner tubes like giant, used prophylactics

A rusty jungle gym

Abandoned slanted shacks of tin

A man in drag lay on a beach towel in the white sun.

A blond, Tippi Hedren beehive.

His make-up dripping off his face like candle wax.

His gown a shimmering sheath of green sequins.

A gorgeous, masculine mermaid.

I noticed he had no eyebrows.

“I melted them off in a freak blow torch accident. I was burning sugar over flan.”

he said.

There was nothing here that I could ever hope to save

There was nothing here that was not gutted

and desolate

and ruined

and blasted

and beautiful.