Either it's rained or it hasn't, the gulf isn't telling.

A tarp for every dinghy. All of it sagging with wet.

Off-season: every breakfast for two. Silence at Popp's Motel,

four days and the concierge in the same teal button-down,

hourly smoke breaks beneath a damp blanket of sky.

Tequesta land, or Miccosukee. Mangrove, mahogany, gumbo limbo…

Vacated coastline. Just you, one foot in the water and a plank

for a spine, soft St. Peter guarding the gate.

The sandpipers regard each other, scratch a bit, strut along.

Always that slow sunset; nowhere that isn't under it.