You can hear the ocean
early in the morning from here,
this house hunkered on the hill,
the back side of Soledad Mountain.
Mexico is way out there and
the lights of downtown muted
by salt air rising from Mission Bay.
This should feel like home.

The sun changes everything
as it scales the mountains,
spills down canyons,
and sets the clouds afire.
I watch the burn.
Traffic noise rises and
defeats the ocean as it will
again this time tomorrow.

My heart is steady.
There is comfort in birthing a day, but
internal combustion is loud,
as is making light and heating homes.
We drive through our days, never
considering how deafness burgeons.
We are too many and we miss hearing home,
the blood and ocean in our ears.

Jim’s work has appeared in The Alembic, The Licking River Review, Mostly Maine, Orange Willow Review, Orion Magazine, The Progenitor…