Point Loma

If once the palms were whole
what beast clawed them to ribbons?

If waves are made of wellings up
inevitably, thus, they break.

Life is a topography of questions
and statements.

With my eyes closed and my lungs open
I breathe them in,

and read them back,
and ask, and state, and ask--

Presidio

Oleander and eucalyptus.
Fundamentally, these.
The scent in the air is not oleander and eucalyptus.
The air is oleander and eucalyptus
as the sun exists only in the twirl of their leaves
--such shape of leaves I had forgotten--
as the territory is demarcated by their silhouettes
as I etch our story in the shallow mulch
soon to forget, soon to change.