Space Needle

As we sit here at Bauhaus Coffee on the hill,

the Space Needle grimaces at us through the glass,

its lid painted its original perky orange 
to commemorate its fiftieth anniversary, 
a retro futuristic lamp standing in front of an inky curtain

of early evening clouds. I gently run a hangnail

down your bare shoulder, tracing the boom

of your wrecking ball tattoo.A potted palmetto 
makes jazz hands at us, trying unsuccessfully 
to grab our attention.

Down in the muck of the amphibious city,

you tickle me with your gills, as on the wharf,

our slimy pink compatriots curl up like fists on beds of ice,

or are flung like floppy disco balls between the fishmongers.

Your inner arms are laced with scars, with rows 
of stitched closed lips.Your wrists dazzle 
with pearls that glow like teeth, 

like little moons sinking through the plume of silt

that billows up around us when we hit bottom.

We burrow like flounders into Puget Sound mud,

dreaming of fish that dart like rockets between the legs of the piers,

oysters that spin like saucers, dragging their nets behind them

like wedding veils as they blast off

into the soundless sea of outer space,

leaving constellations of bubbles in their wake
and leaving us behind, stitched together down there 
in the sludge beneath Seattle, ignoring all those fleshy morsels

that dangle close enough to kiss, knowing that

the prize embedded in every one

is merely a hook.