Put Down Your Camera and Love Me
by JP Reese
The dead whale's bones wash to white
on the beachhead in Puerto Peñasco.
We are full of chalupas, salsa verde,
and bad Mexican music.
Your mouth tastes of sea salt,
your lips tart with the margaritas
we drank at the fish market bar.
I take a swallow, taste the lime,
drink you into my mouth.
The skeletal shadow sinks eastward
as twinned dolphins streak silver over the sea.
Sunset fingers through the carcass,
touches the tourist who has stopped
to snap a photo of his future.
on the beachhead in Puerto Peñasco.
We are full of chalupas, salsa verde,
and bad Mexican music.
Your mouth tastes of sea salt,
your lips tart with the margaritas
we drank at the fish market bar.
I take a swallow, taste the lime,
drink you into my mouth.
The skeletal shadow sinks eastward
as twinned dolphins streak silver over the sea.
Sunset fingers through the carcass,
touches the tourist who has stopped
to snap a photo of his future.
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Author's Note
Currently published in a slightly revised form in Ramshackle Review.
http://ramshacklereview.blogspot.com/search/label/J.P.%20Reese
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Those last few lines are perfect. I think they work so well because the poem has been so physical, almost sensual, and detailed; the abstraction has plenty of bones to hang on.
Very nice, JP.
Life is too short ... perfect balance between the title and the finish. This is the kind of poem I appreciate, layman that I am in the poetic sphere.
Good movement, start to finish here. Very strong closing, Joani. Yes.
Nicely done!
if you'd just seen me you'd have seen how i looked up and down the poem and at the title, and down again, reading it from all sides as it were, and i loved it from all sides, too.
"drink you into my mouth."
Nice! *
Really cool language and use of metaphor here. Wonderful poem. Thanks for posting.
Your poems are so spare, never a word or line too many. Strong and surprising close. Plus such a good title.
"Sunset fingers through the carcass, / touches the tourist who has stopped / to snap a photo of his future."
Wonderful!
*
Sex death the sea booze love food and images that fix themselves with grace or finality. Who could ask more of a poem?
Joani this is a terrific poem that brings so many images up for me, and that title is a killer in all respects.
*
Happy you like it, Susan. Thanks!
found this via the fictionaut blog interview (brilliant!). great piece, a real tele transporter.
Just love this. *
So glad to have read this poem this morning. Your work always has a way of inspiring me, Joani. Thanks!*
Oh man, what wonders lie in that pen of yours. A remarkable poem, Joani! So happy that the Monday chat brought this gem back into brilliant focus.
Fave.
This is amazing. Love it. *
"Your mouth tastes of sea salt",
Sunset fingers through the carcass,
touches the tourist who has stopped
to snap a photo of his future."
Beautiful. Inspiring.
This is incredible, Joani!!! And those last three lines are amazing!!! WOW!!******
so glad the Monday chat brought me here. I agree with Meg's WOW on the last three lines.*
Beautifully evocative and the foreboding finish sets it in stone... great work.
Thanks to everyone who came by to read and comment after Susan so kindly highlighted this piece on Monday Chat. I appreciate all of you for liking this poem and for taking the time to say so.
The last stanza and its images are magnificent. *