After the thrill and wallop of a clean landing, I am lulled in the top of a slow bounce, and I can
breathe in the rapture of purpose...a luxurious place proprietary to fifty-somethings.

Daytime stars crinkle a personal reverence, a secret the length of my spine lights notions of self-
worth...my salvation through a crack in the thinning atmosphere, a truth specific to my longest
living electrons.

I relax and come to a stop. Oaks and concrete and people are lighted from the top of the sky, and
the nature in proximity reigns.

The slow afternoon and I sit with a drink along Central Avenue, invisible to foot traffic. Clouds
start and stop in the same spot of sky, intent like endings.

I imagine I am deeper reclined and unwary, the lead in a better narrative, better able to capitalize
on luck...a reverse coma canceled by the sudden yelp of a car horn.

Now every passerby is a captivating woman, an embodiment of the romantic’s immortal
dream...a reminder to stay keen to the worth in a remarkable loss.

In an ancient room, lovers detonate a web of instant cracks across hermetic walls. The room isn’t
ready and old follies incinerate in the heat of mouths and hands.

The act is a kata practiced in imagination and made real with each body’s release...her clean salt
rind is plied open, laid bare and set alight...he is stronger now than his imagination and takes her
to just before breaking.

Afterward, the lovers stay put...bodies cool and imaginations glow. They are hot-eyed and
intertwined in a mess of pornographic soot and ash.