—or breathing’s disappearance qua
California, ether

of eucalyptus, hills like pelt

spread over muscle, bruised succulents.

Black ocean lapping, lapping, and erosion

throws itself at the freeway, giddy mud

penned in, restraining wire. Who is the cliff

that can’t hold on, that slides? Contours

self-transfiguring, traffic blocked. "The only constant

is impermanence." "Get home safe!"

You and me—these precincts

bearded with seaweed—your body.

Igneous, milky. Halo flash on windshields at sunset, scary vestiges

of heaven, cop’s mirrored glasses. So

we lived inside this tang. "Object constancy"

means the infant believing past the blanket, bougainvillea

uncancelled by the fog. And liquefaction, faults

and rupture: natural. But it hurt, the seized-up

lung—