Unable to Fully California

I stare up at the sky and notice Orion, the
Big Dipper, the North Star, and see Venus on the horizon.

On my sleepwalk

this dark-purple lacquer, a sudden comforter, this
night,

French kisses me
while the trees just stand there serenading.

We really can’t trust this nocturnal sightseeing

but the climb does sweeten, as the air thins ever higher
toward some point we try to make.

Words bake in that hot moonlight.

Beastly pinecones have a conversation with me.

Save us from this poem. We need to tell you something.
We’ve been watching you try to
write your way out of it and we’re tired.

I’m tired too, but I look out at the edge of this
paper and see some mastodons there, I say.

The next morning I can’t remember a thing, overhear something about a
bad dream.

Life goes on. We live a life of itineraries.

I’m glad, however,
that together we can open a colorful brochure for some

new world called hope.