for Billy
we walked down to the water
in Santa Cruz where the cigarette butts
come up to nudge the shards
of mother-of-pearl and empty Gatorade
bottles with all the velocity of
a transdermal Mexican show tune
and the fuck if she wasn't still
impressed although it was her very first
time at 36 seeing the ocean
but I was jaded of course to be back
in the place where radio waves
refuse to carry a drunken voice yet the
street people continued to carry
around my father's face alongside one of
those WILL WORK FOR pieces
of cardboard so I held her beer anyway
when she got down to play in
the wet sand while breakers broke like
the heart of an ugly valentine
on this one lost weekend in the rain