JESUS LIVES IN PALM SPRINGS

Izzy Hodgson

Jesus lives in Palm Springs

I saw him in the motel pool

a girl in her 20s 

arms outstretched and legs pin straight

lying face up looking

through the pool’s wreath of palms

her hair bled out of her head

contaminating the otherwise fluorescent water

our Jesus pulls a crowd

children speak more loudly

play more closely 

even hawaiian shirts 

smoking on uncomfortably 

green lawn squares

turn to grumble

their eyes for her

even the tank topped bumboys

twinkle their cans of coke zero 

in her general direction  

flip themselves onto their backs

tan borders onto their groins

cease watching each other

just to observe her general direction

the wiry capped men and women

flicking at lighters 

the large families 

with small dogs

springbreakers in August

big-talkers

housekeepers

gun-owners

serial killers

and their victims

all

put their eyes to the breaks in the railing 

visoring themselves with fingers against the glare

to watch Jesus rise from the pool  

and head to her room to change.

The motel guests 

on sunbeds

and pavestones

cloistered in corridors

resume the quieter business

of pretending to ignore each other.

Now

they sunbathe

blink

stub out

shift from 2nd to neutral 

turn

blink

and pass on.

MUDLARKING

Every so often, he comes to the banks of the river

furious, furiously smoking himselfinto a cancerous stupor.

He looks down, hands flopped to his side. He will

sift through the pebbles and bones looking for clay pipes

not intending much, seeing as most are broken, unusable.

And though there are some left in tact still

he does not use them. Eyes scan the stones

for something to reach a hand to. And though his daughter stretches out 

both arms, he looks down, hands flopped to his side. He will

stand still, looking at the pipes by his feet, palmed by the river 

and once pressed to a lip in love and moments.

Moments which the mudlark craves for still,

as time runs out to look on the foreshore.

He will heave air into his cancerous lungs, labouring even

to look down now, hands flopped to his side. He will

still light the cigarette that burns away, and look for clay pipes

that clink in the muddy tide. A shriek to say we are here!

We have been here! And we stay here!

He looks down, hands flopped to his side. He will

instead smoke his cigarette, and stand still.