On Not Flying to Hawaii

I could be the waitress
in the airport restaurant
full of tired cigarette smoke and unseeing tourists.
I could turn into the never-noticed landscape
hanging identically in all the booths
or the customer behind the Chronicle
who has been giving advice
about stock portfolios for forty years. I could be his mortal weariness,
his discarded sports section, his smoldering ashtray.

I could be the 70-year-old woman who has never seen Hawaii,
touching her red lipstick and sprayed hair.
I could enter the linen dress
that poofs around her body like a bridesmaid,
or become her gay son
sitting opposite her, stirring another sugar
into his coffee for lack of something true to say.
I could be the reincarnated soul of the composer
of the Muzak that plays relentlessly overhead,
or the factory worker who wove this fake Oriental carpet,
or the hushed shoes of the busboy.

But I don't want to be the life of anything in this pitstop.
I want to go to Hawaii, the wet, hot
impossible place in my heart that knows just what it desires.
I want money, I want candy.
I want sweet ukelele music and birds who drop from the sky.
I want to be the volcano who lavishes
her boiling rock soup love on everyone,
and I want to be the lover
of volcanos, who loves best what burns her as it flows.

Alison Luterman

13.4.10

Jellyfish Sting

jellyfish sting

I decided to try out a new spot today to lie out. There is a small portion of beach that runs alongside the main bridge coming into Destin that is owned by the Air Force. I thought it would be nice to try out some new scenery and new beach. The area was beautiful; the land alongside the water is a bird sanctuary and is home to egrets, mallards, and pelicans. At one point today, I even saw a pelican fly low overhead with a whole fish perched sideways in his mouth.

On the small piece of beach I set up on, I could look across to the Harbor Village and watch the boats come in and out of the jetties. After an hour or so of lying out, I wanted to cool off. I went into the water (which is still a bit chilly) and sat down in the water. When I stood up to walk out, I felt something burning on my leg. At first I thought it was just the typical burn of salt water after shaving, but in looking down, I noticed something wrapped around my leg. It was a jellyfish tentacle. I ripped it off as my leg started to feel like it was on fire. I went back to my chair and started putting ice where I thought it was burning. Eventually, welts started forming where the tentacles had burnt me.

The first thought to my mind was that there was no way that I could pee on myself (because that is what you are supposed to do to alleviate the burn of a sting). Then I started looking around actually contemplating who I could get to pee on my leg!! The desperation of pain.

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