Empty Tip Jars (Revision)

Her hands, empty tip jars, curve to cup the Pacific
At her hips settles the silt of another salt-rimed day;
The words she wears drop to the sand limp and less specific.

When the curtain fell,
Fireflies charged the stage
Light-frenzied and shrouded in wings.

The clouds crowd her ears and she drowns their traffic,
Stringing shells in the cave of her skull—
Her hands, empty tip jars, curve to cup the Pacific.

Like lace cages,
There was a grace in her fingers;
They littered the black panels.

Bleaching in the evenings, her legs snap and bend white as candlewicks,
And her hourglass knees crush the rocks as if she means to pray:
The words she wears drop to the sand limp and less specific.

By then, sirens in the night
Had lost the shock of train whistles,
And only soothed the city deeper into its midnight mire.

The blue burns a bridge across her nose redder than forgotten brick;
She pauses in the afternoons, her lungs breathe hot delay.
Her hands, empty tip jars, curve to cup the Pacific.

They say when you’re gone
Your air goes with you,
Your body blowing its landlord temper.

Lost in a coastless nightmare she swims miles to kick
Wet and grasping from her ankles like seaweed from the bay,
The words she wears drop to the sand limp and less specific

I’ve heard some people throw clods of earth
At the box, muddy between the hymn lines.
They say it’s for the living.

Around her eyes the past creases dark and fish-quick,
Its clam edges burrowed sharp as oysters into the clay;
Her hands, empty tip jars, curve to cup the Pacific.
The words she wears drop to the sand limp and less specific.