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Rhythms of Morning
I am going to the sea, the teal-green latino sea,
the warm-as-bathwater sea,
the sea that sings torrid Cuban love songs,
the sea that touches all shores.
I wait for my taxi to the airport, dark
houses silent as blue water, steeped
in fathoms-deep sleep. Across the street,
one light burns. One crow hacks the quiet
with its rough saw. Here, morning is a fugue,
a woman with her nameless yearnings,
a sullen man with surly and inchoate needs
clinking in his pocket like dull coins.
A single car's headlights sweep over me,
then gone. Light uncurls, owly as the derelict
who rises from his steam vent stiff and cold.
Here, morning slinks and shuffles.
But I am going to the sea, the salty margarita
sea, the equatorial hip and thigh sea, the blowzy
slip-around-me sea where morning will jump
and shimmy and shamelessly rumba with me.
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