This is Newport Beach
By Chris Davidson
Outside the Crab Cooker, two in their twenties
enjoy a kiss, are biting lips, their heads
two boxing-gloved fists, waiting for the bell.
They eventually stop and he hands her something,
money or keys, and one of them must work
at the Crab Cooker—that’s why they kiss like that.
They are dressed in browns and royal blues and
forest greens before a rust restaurant near a black car,
like an ad for something I didn’t know I want.
An earlier version of this poem appeared in the 1996 issue of The Ear.
Chris Davidson's poetry and writing have appeared in such publications as The Rumpus, Jacket2, Zyzzyva, Spoon River Poetry Review, Zocalo Public Square, Green Mountains Review,Miramar, Spark & Echo, and the anthologies Dust Up and Monster Verse: Poems Human and Inhuman
.