Our Feature by the Waters

The tide is out. The sea stinks like a sewer.
An airplane lays itself down like a hand
upon the world. There’s a drive-in
theater over there,
eleven thousand tons of sand
changing imperceptibly in its embrace,
and one blank and horrified janitor with a face
that looks like a million kilometers,
observing the dismal situation.
How is he ever going to alter this
beach-head into a place
you can sit in your car in and get stoned
while athletic figures
shimmer and wane in a palpitating dance
of hand-to-hand violence
against a backdrop of the sea and stars?
How are we ever going to get home?
Why are we so alone
that we must immobilize ourselves before these gigantic screens
and ignore the images they broadcast over the town
and guffaw and change and turn brown
and covered with hair, our countenances bestial and mean
before the celebrations
held in the secret black churches of engines?