Stiltsville

Tepid conclusions swell in August:
waves lapping at house legs,
shortening days drawing close
waters climbing

themselves against gravity.
You yawn starry-eyed
and languidly draw
your legs to arms.

The house

tenuously over coral rocks:
creaking wood dampens dark
from rising ocean frothing
with circling clouds of minnows.

"Dusk always makes me a little uneasy."
"I know what you mean.
I wish we could fix these things."
"We're doing alright."
"No, I mean Stiltsville.
It's illegal to repair these things."

Watching from a roof over the ocean
the sun falls into climbing water
like a goldfish carried to a fountain.

"So it's just going to fall?
"I don't know, no hurricanes yet. Sometime.
We ought to get back before it's too dark."

Miles east clouds drag and circle
each other into a system
that will dissipate before landfall.

"When I was two my family almost
died in one- I remembered when I was
seven. We didn't board the windows
and Andrew crystallized them.
The house was luke warm
and full of glass- the pieces
were this big."

You wink and frame
a calm eye with two long fingers,
smiling, "I want just one more bad one
to stir things up."

The boat pushes home,
right of the red buoys to land.