The Writers' Circle

TOO MUCH

On the day we buried my mother
 I stayed in a motel called sea crest
with the scent of chlorine and urine
But you could see
 from the concrete balcony
past the asphalt parking lot
past the line of palms and cypress trees, 
Past the six lane highway, congested 
with angry metal boxes, Waiting 
for the lights to go green
 the  sea
 like a blue mirror with a gleaming orange swatch of the suns' remaining blessings .

On TV there was a bronze coffin 
 it sat alone on the concrete ribbon of an air base
 in Germany. They said it was a local boy 
who had been a high school football star. 

I changed the channel 
a man and a woman
entered a room
trading hungry kisses
 tore off their clothes, 
 licked each other's bronzed perfect limbs
 I looked on
in silence 
somewhere in this sunbaked concrete bunker
 a toilet flushed. I turned to look out the window
 my eyes were red
the color
 of the dying sky
 before it fled over the horizon of the sea 
 This day 
Had too much red in it, 
too much