Moon Jellyfish

Walking the low-tide beach at dusk, I stopped short at a dead  jellyfish:

pink poison (a tattoo on the nape of  a neck) still stinging, hurtful.

Further on, another: Uncle Fester’s bald scalp—dumb, electrified.

Hundreds left strewn all over the mud: clear sandy blobs, half-globe sadnesses.

One  jellyfish lay like a broken Magic 8 ball: too hazy to tell.

One had black sand dried into a small V, like the back of a pixie cut

or a soul patch, shaved & groomed, a mound shorn to please: sexy & so plump.

One fit into a bra, balanced breasts. One missed the wave, couldn’t get home.

A heavy-set woman paddled her board toward the little harbor, north.

Did you see all of  these?  I yelled; my words echoed off her sunburnt skin.

One, a dried purple plum. One had the imprint of a toddler’s soft arch.

The harbor illuminated with globe lights strung off the yacht clubs’ piers.

I realized this was my old drunk nightmare but I wasn’t sure who else knew.

The boozy boats moored, bobbing? The woman, rowing, hair pulled up 
& clasped?