visiting the grave of one of your dreams

it's morning again, a breeze
pulls fleecy clouds over the tiny strip
of land where the surfside motel apartments
are run by a vietnamese american woman
who grew up here. her family have owned
the place for forty years. you are jealous
of the walk she made to gradeschool
when the condos down the street
were an empty lot, when the loud sounds
of rockets kept her awake during night launches
you regret that you too are not an americanised immigrant
only the grandson of one. she works hard, is barely
able to converse in terms beyond the homeless
sleeping in the courtyard, stashing their backpacks
in her carefully maintained family business. jealous but
admiring. regrets pile up like sand against your ankles.

i'm all used up this morning. the feedback required
for a sustainable future has not been forthcoming.
the resonances are out of phase, so everything just
comes out null. flat. across A1A the ocean beckons

with a loud wink i can sense but not see. i wait for you
with a skim board and a chair in my arms, a towel
around my neck. i wait until i can't anymore. i'm in
the surf long before you plant your chair next to mine

as if they were a couple of pelicans, roosting . but i'm
riding the currents way out where the big boards go.
a man in a kayak uses wave power to drive into shore
and i have trouble telling which way the tide's headed

but it looks like out. this morning i don't want
to ride the same wave as you, close to shore
swimming with minnows. i feel more like a shark
that lost its hunger for anything on the end of a line.