at sunset suddenly dawns on us
we might toss our favorite images
into moon river and lucky old sun
is so lonesome he could cry
peacocks strut round the curves
of Sunset Strip up on iridescent
displays of monolithic cardboard
billboards crackling in summer
1968 and I’m late to the summer
of love on the Peace Truck radio
from the beach cities up to your
place in Los Feliz not to make
love or blow a number and go see
2001: A Space Odyssey at Pacific
or to protest a war or hear Johnny
Rivers at the Whiskey but to visit
the Children’s Hospital on Sunset
at sunset the shifts changing
the night coming on like a drug
a dire psychedelic experience
but nothing expands in fact
we shrink into a dim distant
past when our own singularities
merge to form a celestial duo
of one we don’t know what
happened before that nor
what comes next we have
one memory and each other
shivering great balls of grief
we drive up to the park
walk around the observatory
the city of wilderness below
ostrich features of orange
gold drift across the basin
and I whisper I will turn
stones into bread for you
The Coming of the Toads 