mad mine entrance 1972: our monsters welcome all visitors now playland at the beach is rubble gingham skirts afloat in sea caves your city built a bridge from ports just to cross another bridge your city swinging fists of rolled quarters throbs on a bed of vengeful serpents glass tower over stark columns capped with grass mat roofs you put palm to pane like a child first viewing imprisoned gorillas sure they can break it and so they should deep in the center of sporadics curious ghosts surround a lived-in mazda don’t be a target shore ruins mope another day hidden in cliff house old hotel shell have you inch of soul to spare to think the dead don’t plot to re-emerge you’d be mistaken legion of honor offers holocaust roleplay golden gate golfers dodge crumbled crypts as if decay is a leisurely game your skin a casual erosion oro en paz fierro en guerra gilded temple curves the oakland hill above bay how panopticons pillow phantom ships usher hemorrhage into ash
-- Originally from Monterey, AJ Urquidi (he/him) is an ace Southern California writer whose work has been featured in Faultline, Posit, and Chiron Review, among others. He is copydesk chief for Los Angeles Review of Books and an executive editor of experimental online journal indicia.