Neuf

In which a lover from the previous piece is seen with a new lover.

Brie met Stephen, up in a palm tree.
They were down by the boardwalk before the tsunami.

It was only a wee one; it could carry off babies,
sure and maybe some ladies, but not very many.
The attendant paparazzi, they saw they sea sucking.
Like a toilet bowl flushed, the water receding.
Sunglasses lowering, L.A. traffic braking,
yet the bathers were giggling, joking "the ocean is draining."
The dreadlocked young lifeguard, who had done liberal traveling,
she recognized the warning, cried "head for the hotels!"
Stephen was sleeping, and an iPod had claimed Brie.
The water came rushing. And then came the stampede
of near-topless bathers, clutching bikinis,
like escapees from zombies in a Hollywood movie,
or from panty raiders in a different such movie,
either way they were running, and all of them screaming.
Stephen woke suddenly when a child tripped on his knee.
At first he was pissy, but then he stepped lively
when he saw his life coming on the face of the wave.
Beer on her face freed Brie from the thrall of India.Arie.
The future lovers span their legs like Wile E. Coyote,
the sand spitting like whirlicopters as they cried "Oh God help me!
What in the hell did I do, to wake up to this movie?"
then took off like a drag race and raced for the dunes.
The shadow of the water, like the sight of deja vu
that tells you what you do you've done once before you,
and comes creeping up behind you to reclaim what's before you
and threatens to swallow you in some endless time-loop
while you run like a cartoon as it whispers from the past,
"If your life is repeating, then that means you're dead."
Stephen was crying, the tears flying backwards;
he'd gone from snoozing to weeping in point-oh-five seconds.
Brie meanwhile was tackling her own world record,
specifically, speed-talking, as she prayed to be reckoned
worthy of outrunning the wave.
And then there came the palm.
Stephen, starting closer, and Brie, who was faster,
the two pied pipers leading a great mob of water,
arrived photo finish, each grabbing the tower,
and throwing legs over, Brie taller, Stephen broader,
they gripped to each other and wrapped themselves round her,
like a barbershop pole, or a maypole with streamers,
holding on together, and spiraling up higher,
arm to leg, cheek to trunk, shoulder to shoulder,
without either one saying a word to the other,
like a nut up a bolt they spun up their savior,
made the top in a second and fastened themself there.
A two-headed person, each head blinded with horror,
with no beginning or endings, a wonder of nature,
like two clay Gumbys with limbs melted together,
they were bound to that tree like a ring round a finger,
and were in this conjunction as the waters washed over.
This palm, their shelter, was an American Daphne,
a long lithe avatar of beachfront vanity,
who had come to California to tan up her body.
But drawn to her lure, the boys in their envy
chased the girl round the shore till, bored and weary,
to escape such torture she took her shape as a tree.
Could she be bothered by the rage of the sea? No.
She barely tremored, as if but stirred by a breeze.
So there was Stephen, and there was Brianna,
in their new home in the palm, like a couple bananas.
Their lives had flashed before them, which had not taken long.
Stephen's: surf, girls, tours, bongs.
Brie's: clubs, boys, TV, stores.
(In truth, they'd done more - I mean Stephen did have a great extended family with all sorts of little cousins who adored him, and he was dedicated to charity work, and never ate pork; and Brie wrote articles on celebrities that were often enlightening and always entertaining, and never backstabbed anyone who she accepted into her inner circle, and ran this one marathon; but deja vu at the moment of death has a way of cutting to the core.)
At long last, they peered around the pillar.
The water was rushing past, gurgling like a chopper,
hushing like a librarian, purring like a tiger.
The blue emerald leaves were embracing the shelter.
The shrug of the trunk was like a veranda.
Mere moments before it had seemed like sayonara.
But in each other's eyes they could now see forever.
The wet survivors below couldn't see into their bower.
So Stephen and Brie, who were both very pretty,
rolled the dough of their bodies into a new pastry,
seeking to express themselves now creatively,
and banish the terror that had nearly carried them away.
In Malibu by the pier where they'd later be married,
Up in the tree, after the tsunami.