LA Weekly Poetry: 'Where We Recur' By Allison K Gibson

crawfish head/Flickr

​LA Weekly is now taking poetry submissions. Interested in having your work posted right here on our arts blog? Send previously unpublished poems along with an image to go with it to poetry@laweekly.com. Check out today's poem after the jump.

Where We Recur

By Allison K Gibson

The tide is moody, all highs
and lows.
On damp knees,
it crawls onto land, nails scratching at sand,
until it changes its mind and lets go.

Sea wall spray paint says locals only,
but for the right price we'll take your sorrow.
Sally sells her seashells down by the seashore.
For fifteen more,
she'll swallow.     

A brawl in the breakers
breaks somebody's nose.
Locals cup their hands
and paddle flat past the red sea.
It's wild, this high tide: anything goes.   

Now here come the tourists, ringing bells on rented bikes.
Ding-Ding-Ding, they sing,
California is not what it seemed,
not the screen saver on my desktop machine.
They'll never know why.

But we do not mind this mess;
do not wonder when the fog will lift.
This is a desperate place, a summer haze,
where everyone leaves
and everyone stays.

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