excerpt from The Smithsonian Guide to North American Shapes

excerpt from The Smithsonian Guide to North American Shapes

New Hotel Developed During Recession

Architectural nib—wound lofty, uppity even,

constructed effervescently, saintly skyward blueward against

a bright backdrop—HOTEL—pasted there. A sheen like magic,

like the magical enterprise of music, lit up, steelshine

windows and glossy-corporate a color now, a compilation

of lost colors, weightless in the beachsalt air, aloft,

a compendium of antiearth, aboveitall, americhrist.

Maybe I’m just reaching. But there, arisen where dunes

reigned and seaoats perked their views, a tower,

a new thing blinding the sunset, with summer pools a mile’s

fraction from the surf, haloed by seagulls, a breach in terrain,

archiving tyrannically whatever rebuffs it: baker’s shop

and sandwich tent, pavilion, boardwalk, what ebbs and ebbs

against its borders. My eyeshift pastes it there. Hotel lit

on the cloud mountains, over the sandhills, where surfers keep

their watching, their voices bleared by treble/and bassthumps cars procure/

where hoisted to the heavens/it stunts us at the shore.

Refrain. It’s hard to. I grew up sculpting castles near these dunes.

But now, what could obscure that...weightless...watermirage? And

why not wash my hands of it? Because it lacks essence.

It demonstrates without allowances. A building is no ocean.

Peninsular carcinoma, unleash your querulous nest of jetlagged snowbirds.

Bathe the town in burnt red and watery knots of bubbleflesh. Why

not. This isn’t paradise. It’s funny. How I act surprised, as if you

weren’t expected. Truth is, the lawyers saw you coming.

This transient land’s watched apostles topple the apostates, subjugate

the everglades, evergreens, canes, groves, cattail river gates in search

of goldpower. Grabit&growl. Get your tickets for the Fountain-of-Youth.

What’s changed? The industry of Florida is disparity and space.

Even the wild pigs are not our own.

My words seem lousy failures, but this is what I’ve got instead of money.

I’d pay a hurricane but you’re proofed for it. You’ll be empty in a decade,

Though you’ll already have succeeded in bringing down your winters.