La Bocana, Baja California

1.
Too many of us in a blue VW bus,
sticking to woven polyvinyl seats,
zinging flattened Ding Dongs&Twinkies
down the Transpeninsular Highway.
2. La Bocana is Topanga wild—if the sagebrush
were to break loose, the canyon crumble
into the evening tide where horses and night
herons wander the lagoon, falcons drift
the wake and stone cliffs above the marsh
filled with bright red, snapping crawdads.

3.
The parents dump the too damn many of us
at the cliffside casita of a fat abuela who speaks
no Inglés and teaches us to make flour tortillas.
“¿Una Coca, por favor?”… “¿Esta the toilet?”

4.
The crapper is an ancient outhouse. Perched
on a southern bluff over the green Pacific,
the sea and salt erode all the shit and planks
of the silver wood structure, all the wads
of poison oak my brother used for toilet paper,
though he didn’t intend to.

5. La Bufadora tips Punta Banda Peninsula, blow hole
of the Baja cave system. The too fucking many of us
crouch on the lizard covered rocks. Green snakes
mist themselves and slip into the soaring plume.

6.
We drive northbound, homeward, away
from the spouts and carnitas and herons.
We nurse crawdad bites and poison oak rashes.
We fling our flour tortillas and don’t care
that we’re piled on top one another
like dirty laundry. We’re going home.