Don’t

The hibiscus were impartial but patricide was the topic of conversation, not the usual coacktail party banter. A dragonfly drained a pistil daiquiri, while a croo of white ibis pecked at some takeaway boxes, and Lagartija Ron watched silently in blitzkrieg formation from the tree line.

I was on a two week jag to the past—in the shape of Florida—in the key of Spanglish. My ancestral forelocks were trapped in a cowlick, all mortise and tenon-like, as if we were on an all-inclusive at a Bahamas resort, specifically Eleuthera—but full of temperate zone tchotchkes and such.

It was an altogether vertiginous and humid afternoon. The wet bulb temperature was nearly 95° F—deadly, you see—so the impartial hibiscus were decidedly on a manatee fissure, fig banyan, sorta tip—and I was, like, sure! Aha! I second that!

But I really had no conception of where I was or what I was going on about. See, that’s the thing about Florida. . .

Don’t.

It didn’t work out for Ponce de Leon. It definitely went sour for Hernando de Soto. And now… well… just…

Don’t.

What I’m Reading:

“The hardest part
is the songbirds
and their fugue state,
fug state, fuck it.”

— Peter Gizzi / “Song”