Scott Sweeney

Autumn Beach

It’s Black Friday,
and we’re miles from any mall, where
Capitalism
will trample whoever opens doors
at the Wal-Mart
at six in the morning. Evening, waves
tumble ashore to
the echo of Thanksgiving,
tossing billions of dead
bivalves over the island sand.
Promised rains never came and,
as night falls—unfolds its Orion,
Cassiopeia, its Seven
Sisters—twinkling stars eons dead—
it’s Mumbai on T.V., it’s the Taj,
the Oberoi, blood on the stairs and
searching room to room,
but not our room, where the only red
is your skin echoing
the rumble of a sauna tub
and, lying with door open,
your warm mouth echoes the pounding
of the Gulf.