I Don’t Think I’ll Be Here Much Longer
By Mark Lee Webb
It’s the wrong exit, and I’m lost on my way
to Malibu Beach. I might not hear the freeway
if the car windows were up, but it’s hot,
they’re rolled down, and damn the adobe dust
dulling the view. I follow a detour down to dirt
on a plot of land marked only with tire tracks—
I don’t think anyone really lives here. It seems more
like a spot to crash between seasons of dates and figs,
pieced together with sheets and scavenged boards.
I wave to a girl who’s sitting on a floor made entirely
of discarded wood doors, a girl with coyote thistles
stuck to her socks. She tells me there’s no place here
to swim. She says there’s no beach. Just creeks
that always run dry but never the same way twice.
About the author:
Mark Lee Webb received an MFA from Queens University of Charlotte. He has published two chapbooks: WHATEVERITS (Finishing Line Press, 2014) and The Weight of Paper (ELJ Publications, 2014). His poems have appeared in many literary journals, including Ninth Letter, Rattle, Reed, The Louisville Review, Aeolian Harp, Soundings Review, Glassworks, and others.
