sometimes at night

when i think, sometimes at night

(of the rows upon rows
of humble palms, their fronds
dripping, drying, cracking in the heat
their heads bowed to the elements,
the streets flattened and paved in the sun
by men with liquified tar going thick and
black on the soles of their boots;
the ocean that was made host to 
a time picturesque as a dirty teen novel)

i know i am hard inside, made solid by the sun
like clay, opening up into rivulets and 
breaking, always-
my longing will  grow straight up inside me
like a redwood, although
if i am honest, i am not made of anything so damp and green.

(light and lifted like fires,
my heart wily and marked by
manzanitas)