Baja

Welcome to Baja California, land of the Id,

where  languorous waves pummel the beach with pugilist fists,

where sacred vultures scour the skies and skeptical scissor-tailed frigate-birds circle,  refusing to roost;

where milky puffs signal the lust of  bachelor whales, and bat-winged modula shoot from  shallows and drop, with  skin-smarting  slaps, into the waves;

where slick seals glide, thrusting whiskered snouts into the liquid air, and pelicans play tug-of-war with hides stripped from the flanks of noble marlin;

where dark-skinned, big-hipped women with tumescent thighs mince the pavement in heart-piercing heels, and sweet-talking romeos of real estate seduce with offers of free beer, free money, free love;

where the yucca’s turgid stalk thrusts pods swollen with honeyed petals into the beaks of orioles the color of sunlight, and hummingbirds dive into the heart of fiesta hibiscus,  sucking the luscious nectar of life;

Where white-bellied  men in baggy shorts guffaw from despair and women, bloated with shopping, ogle young bucks  clutching Coronas like bottles of  mothers’ milk,

and  spidery rebars rise from concrete pilings
while  Steinbeck’s Mexicans still glumly lurk in the pounding murk of the taverna.