California night. The Devil’s wind,
the Santa Ana, blows in from the east,
raging through the canyon like a drunk
screaming in a bar.
The air tastes like
a stubbed-out cigarette. But why complain?
The weather’s fine as long as you don’t breathe.
Just lean back on the sweat-stained furniture,
lights turned out, windows shut against the storm,
and count your blessings.
Another sleepless night,
when every wrinkle in the bedsheet scratches
like a dry razor on a sunburned cheek,
when even ten-year whiskey tastes like sand,
and quiet women in the kitchen run
their fingers on the edges of a knife
and eye their husbands’ necks. I wish them luck.
Tonight it seems that if I took the coins
out of my pocket and tossed them in the air
they’d stay a moment glistening like a net
slowly falling through dark water.
I remember
the headlights of the cars parked on the beach,
the narrow beams dissolving on the dark
surface of the lake, voices arguing
about the forms, the crackling radio,
the sheeted body lying on the sand,
the trawling net still damp beside it. No,
she wasn’t beautiful—but at that age
when youth itself becomes a kind of beauty—
“Taking good care of your clients, Marlowe?”
Relentlessly the wind blows on. Next door
catching a scent, the dogs begin to howl.
Lean, furious, raw-eyed from the storm,
packs of coyotes come down from the hills
where there is nothing left to hunt.
