Ocean Park #17, 1968: Homage to Diebenkorn

What I remember is a carhop on Pico hurrying

Toward a blue Chevy,

A crucifix dangling from its rearview mirror

That jiggled as the driver brushed

A revolver against it, in passing, before tucking it

Behind his back & beginning to joke with her.

What I remember

Is the smooth arc the gun made & the way

Jesus shimmied to the rhythm.

Someday I’ll go back to the place depicted

By the painting, boarded over by the layers of paint

And abandoned,

And beneath the pastel yellows I’ll find

The Bayside Motel & the little room

With the thin, rumpled coverlet,

And sit down, drinking nothing but the night air

By the window, & wait for her to finish

Dressing, one earring, then another,

And wait until the objects in the room take back

Their shapes in the dawn,

And wait until

Each rumpled crease in the sheets & pillowcase

Is as clear as a gift again, & wait — 

At a certain moment, that room, then all the rooms

Of the empty Bayside,

Will turn completely into light.

I place a cup on the sill & listen for the faint

Tock of china on wood, & ...

That moment of light is already this one — 

Sweet, fickle, oblivious, & gone:

My hand hurrying across the page to get there

On time, that place

Of  undoing — 

Where the shriek of  the carhop’s laugh,

And the complete faith of the martyr, as he spins & shimmies in the light,

And the inextricable candor of doubt by which Diebenkorn,

One afternoon, made his presence known

In the yellow pastels, then wiped his knuckles with a rag — 

             Are one — are the salt, the nowhere & the cold — 

The entwined limbs of  lovers & the cold wave’s sprawl.