From the Fishouse

Jacaranda trees bloom a color that suggests to me

delight. There’s not a bee near them: no patience
to schedule-in these flowers, necessities pursued

instinctually with eyes drawn to ultraviolet
variegations of hue. Bees go after accessibility and ripeness, orbiting

all over my neighbor’s jasmine vines trained into a topiary
dolphin down in the backyard shade. A living form

of labor and data-processing, the bees
aren’t tuned-in to my desires: they don’t feel

me wishing I heard the thwack of high palms, the Santa Anas’
heat humming through the window screen, instead of Wal-mart’s

intercom broadcast to all available loading dock associates.
I get some satisfaction from that voice—

an intimation about jobs and their resisters.
I’ve filled my bathtub with water, measured

perfectly too-hot. I’m able to get in or not get in.
What I assume will be a pleasure I remember splashing off

the cold porcelain, the hollow slosh as it accumulated
with its sound almost as real. Done working today,

I can’t allow too much ease to clutter the difference
between privacy and loneliness. There is always comfort

elsewhere: I do not want to rely on this. Molecules swarm
off the water’s surface, scatter and condense, steam

settling on the mirror where your name comes back.