Vacation with sand and they are parasols, paper parasols
in my drinks. Umbrellas are for keeping the rain
off and atop. Parasols of this size are for insinuating,
yet again, sun into the equation of relaxation
and open tabs. Tabs on beer are canned laughter here.
Here, nothing is contained in more secure a vault
than paper or plastic: consumer echoes can’t be missed.
Neither can one miss the presence of the not-there beer bottle
in the hand worth two on the walls all around: broken bits
to keep one off the atop: embedded sharp and sun in green,
in amber (after rain, which never comes here but must) sans dust.
There has been a poem about this before. About this
severe accessory of height and trespass.
I tell you this is not news: this is a rebroadcast from the mind
spending its American time uncomfortably in its own skin abroad.
I tell you, despite this, there is no cover to be found.
Not even between another’s covers. The parasol yields everything.

*

Elizabyth A. Hiscox is the author of the chapbook Inventory from a One-Hour Room (Finishing Line Press) and her poetry has appeared in The Fiddlehead, Gargoyle, Gulf Coast, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and elsewhere. She is completing a PhD at Western Michigan University where she has served as Layout Editor for New Issues Poetry & Prose, and Poetry Editor for Third Coast.