Self-Portrait as Lingua Franca

The collapsing sun makes of bikini
lines, brush strokes. The air, salt-steeped and thick

with the sweet drowsiness of having
laid on the beach all day. We buy lemon

ice cream, walk back passing around one spoon
like a cigarette between bar strangers.

Buildings look lickable—watermelon
-taffy houses, windows lined with seafoam

green rinds. This whole place, pulled from a palette
of pastel and pastelito. I’m drunk

on the masterpiece of everything:
the ribbed texture of the walls, called fluting

because of course it is. Because all art
shares wording, and all wording is music.

Imagine: a family of vernaculars,
gathered about their mutual terms like friends

on a picnic blanket, around a pre
-roll and bodega snacks. Over eighty

languages spoken here, but in Spanish
I’m understood by everyone. Remind me

to write a question here, I don’t yet have
the words. I resist our scatter like a fist

full of seeds. Sand will cling to my clothing
for weeks. Even the crepe myrtle is Art

Deco—the familiar pink of its crawl
towards the sky. Ubiquitous pink, like sun

-light through clenched eyelids. The color of
the blushing under every human tongue.