Juxtaposition of Empires

Elmer and I meander our Empire neighborhood on April 9, 2026.

Our meander begins at 6:45 AM.

Destination: the boat ramp and beach.

A woman lights a pipe

behind the grocery store.

I hear laughing.

A man standing near steps forward.

They break meth together.

A woman sleeps under the mural of Empire’s heyday.

They thought the big trees would never run out.

A man riding a red bicycle

gripping chopper handlebars

skids to a stop in a lazy intersection.

A woman sitting on his lap jumps off,

pants slide to her shins.

I see a quarter moon in the sky,

a full moon on the street.

A man harnessed to a rectangular rickshaw

pulls the contraption up a hill.

It is empty.

No passengers or possessions.

A prayer flag attached to a fishing rod

wedged into the rickshaw

waves in the breeze.

A maroon Jeep Cherokee from the 90s

rests near a thicket of blackberries.

All windows blasted out except one.

A master of applying black duct tape

has worked wonders.

I call this art of the survival,

displayed in street side galleries

all across the Republic.

Perpetual free admission.

We descend to the beach.

Low tide.

Salt suffuses the air.

Pilings from the old lumber mills still here.

A rotting graveyard of Empire’s former prosperity.

I hear disembodied voices

in the willows of Coos Bay.

An argument rages:

He complains about inadequate fellatio.

She wants more cunnilingus.

He yells something I can’t make out.

She screams, “When I suck your dick you wag your tail like a dog.”

I was told there was once a Hooverville in the area.

Sunrise paints the bay a dull orange.

Nary a ripple, everything pacific.

An osprey flies clutching

a stick in its beak,

construction materials for the

nest cohering in the channel marker.

A sandpiper skewers a sand shrimp.

Pelicans glide inches above water.

Gulls dismember crabs in the mudflats.

A blue heron hunts in a slough.

I’m looking for my buddy the seal

and a freighter named Lily of the Sea

that conveys across the ocean

death from the clearcuts

in the upper watersheds.

I find a shaving kit washed ashore

and read equations of sweet horny math in the sand.

I write one myself for her,

one she’ll never read.

Back in the willows,

she bellows, “Get the fuck out of here!”

He says nothing.