Wish I Could Buy Me a Spaceship and Fly Past the Sky

—after Kanye West

I tell students don’t write about the beach

or especially the ocean and definitely not

if a moon or sun is involved.

Those words are too big

for all of us, and the devil

is in the details. But

if I were there now, toes festering

in the light, silk grit underneath

and worming into cracks

I thought were tight enough,

then I’d be tempted.

Why are we drawn

to the soup from which we think

we crawled, water on our cheeks, 

salt crying out to be showered 

away, gravity dragging

our washed-out shells,

when all we want is to fly home.

I can’t see other stars for envy,

so I let the sun strike me dead, and after,

the moon carries on without me.