Elmer and I meander our Empire neighborhood on April 9, 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our meander begins at 6:45 AM.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Destination: the boat ramp and beach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A woman lights a pipe<\/p>\n\n\n\n
behind the grocery store.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I hear laughing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A man standing near steps forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They break meth together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A woman sleeps under the mural of Empire’s heyday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They thought the big trees would never run out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A man riding a red bicycle<\/p>\n\n\n\n
gripping chopper handlebars<\/p>\n\n\n\n
skids to a stop in a lazy intersection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A woman sitting on his lap jumps off,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
pants slide to her shins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I see a quarter moon in the sky,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
a full moon on the street.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A man harnessed to a rectangular rickshaw<\/p>\n\n\n\n
pulls the contraption up a hill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is empty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No passengers or possessions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A prayer flag attached to a fishing rod<\/p>\n\n\n\n
wedged into the rickshaw<\/p>\n\n\n\n
waves in the breeze.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A maroon Jeep Cherokee from the 90s<\/p>\n\n\n\n
rests near a thicket of blackberries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All windows blasted out except one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A master of applying black duct tape<\/p>\n\n\n\n
has worked wonders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I call this art of the survival,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
displayed in street side galleries<\/p>\n\n\n\n
all across the Republic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Perpetual free admission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We descend to the beach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Low tide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Salt suffuses the air.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pilings from the old lumber mills still here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A rotting graveyard of Empire’s former prosperity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I hear disembodied voices<\/p>\n\n\n\n
in the willows of Coos Bay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An argument rages:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He complains about inadequate fellatio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She wants more cunnilingus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He yells something I can’t make out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She screams, \u201cWhen I suck your dick you wag your tail like a dog.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was told there was once a Hooverville in the area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sunrise paints the bay a dull orange.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nary a ripple, everything pacific.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An osprey flies clutching<\/p>\n\n\n\n
a stick in its beak,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
construction materials for the<\/p>\n\n\n\n
nest cohering in the channel marker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A sandpiper skewers a sand shrimp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pelicans glide inches above water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gulls dismember crabs in the mudflats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A blue heron hunts in a slough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I’m looking for my buddy the seal<\/p>\n\n\n\n
and a freighter named Lily of the Sea<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n that conveys across the ocean<\/p>\n\n\n\n death from the clearcuts<\/p>\n\n\n\n in the upper watersheds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I find a shaving kit washed ashore<\/p>\n\n\n\n and read equations of sweet horny math in the sand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I write one myself for her,<\/p>\n\n\n\n one she’ll never read.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Back in the willows,<\/p>\n\n\n\n she bellows, \u201cGet the fuck out of here!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He says nothing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Elmer and I meander our Empire neighborhood on April 9, 2026. Our meander begins at 6:45 AM. Destination: the boat ramp and beach. A woman lights a pipe behind the grocery store. I hear laughing. A man standing near steps forward. They break meth together. A woman sleeps under the mural of Empire’s heyday. They […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9815,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,10,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-coos-bay","category-meditations","category-poetry","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11299\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}