Orange Froth (Mud in Your Eye)

Tide pools of caramel curds coagulate between the rocks. 
The kids swirl their sticks in the goop, fishing out 
syrup-soaked sea-stars and anemones dripping with resin. 
They slap their treasures onto the damp sand, 
prodding each specimen until certain they are dead. 

The sea is liquid candy; root beer barrel, 
creamsicle, marmalade. The children squeal with delight 
at the slop that oozes from their catches; 
puddles form atop the over-saturated sand, waiting to be
reluctantly reclaimed by the glutted tide. The children run 

from the amber waves that shatter into globs of froth and foam 
that instantly reform back into one sticky organism. 
The clouds grow dense overhead, and a breeze skims the fetid water. 
The wind shoves the stench up over the dunes, 
then slams it against the medicated houses whose 
dimly-lit windows stare blankly at the cleaver-edge of the horizon.
The kids run home, leaving the beach pockmarked 

with bare heel prints that swell with miniature seas. 
Around the edges of these little oceans, tiny crews erect 
diminutive derricks. Soon operations will be underway 
to siphon the precious poison from the sand 
drop by drop, to be used as fuel 
for tiny cities. On one of these beaches, 
a group of children plays, laughing and scrambling 
over grains of sand like boulders. The plummeting raindrops 

create ripples that crash in thundering waves 
against the shore, splashing the kids' faces with a greasy spray. 
The children spit and run home, leaving behind nearly microscopic
footprints in the fine dust between the silicon stones. 
These footprints too fill with water, creating filthy seas 
a few molecules deep, through which barges glide, 
laden with vast quantities of carbon and hydrogen atoms 
as the ships steadily chug towards distant refineries too small 
to be viewed with the naked eye...*           


*I am sitting in the elevated hospital bed. My roommate has his TV on, and even with the curtain drawn to separate the room I can still see half the screen. A man in the prow of a boat points out over the slimy water. The camera zooms on a shark that has poked its nose into the air in an attempt to unclog its gills. The shark rolls like a slippery turd, leaving a trail of bubbling orange froth in its wake. The camera lingers as the shark slips once more beneath the surface, leaving nothing but water. Or something like it. I feel knotted up. Everything in the room around me is plastic; I am surrounded by solid oil. There's no sense in trying to clear my body of it; it is keeping me alive. The vents constantly blow air. A machine in the next room bloops urgently. The man in the other bed starts muttering to himself; it takes me a moment to realize he's talking in his sleep. I reach for the plastic water bottle on my tray, take a long drink through the accordion straw. Sucking up liquid from deep in the depths, then gulping it down.