uber miami beach to balcony

(April 2022. Title says it all.)

uber miami beach to balcony

right along collins all the way
the road along the canal or river or bay-
section
through and around miami beach
which is more than islands

at the restaurant imagine
as i walk by the table
a man with nice hair in a tank top
and some kind of shorts
gives me the look up and down
at but not through the holes in my sweats
to the white skin of this body’s story

miami is a unique place
everything is very explicit

it is beautiful here,
this spectacular paradise
colonized later than anything east of the mississippi
a swamp of resistance
turned paradise with air conditioning
the great southwestern sunbelt sales pitch of the mid-second half of the 20th century
sold on tv to those sick of struggle and on top of the world,
of a warm wave with los angeles and phoenix
but florida being the south of the east
miami is more mosquitoey
and full of bloodsuckers

a weighty heft of the american dream
settled southward for the winter
slowly till it was warm winter
mostly forever

but we are still going up
believe me we still are
the islands do all touch
so we keep going
going up to balcony
extending ourselves through the edges of our dreams