SQUIRT OF THE VALKYRIES

11

Hoyotoho! (followed by operatic overture) I am walking Little squirts of water nine inches high or a foot high are erupting from the sand always just a yard ahead or behind to the left or to the right ~ Clams! We are talking fifty OH One hundred OH One thousand clams right now OH Even more than I can count I cannot count how many clams must be around here So many clams like counting all these sand grains in the noonbright sun which I ought to mention be glittering like heaven ejected a vanity mirror from the stratosphere and exploded into a shoreline These clams got a performance A performance that recalls The Fountains of Bellagio Paradise NV where they’ve installed one thousand two hundred fourteen water nozzles Four thousand seven hundred ninety-two lights And the water appears to jet higher than the roof of the hotelcasinoresort itself At least I believe that And I believe that it takes place to a soundtrack of triumph blaring from nearby speakers A soundtrack of Wagner I imagine until I take out my fucking phone right then and there search YouTube to see a video at The Bellagio AH man they’ve cued up The Pink Panther instead I press play and let a sultry tenor sax bewitch me immediately (big band JAZZ) I am not walking I’m watching those nozzles weaving in time from a thousand miles away I’m on a beach I’m on an island I’m standing in the middle of a miracle I’m standing looking stupid in the middle of a day More little squirts of water expanding further from me now A bivalve halo performing all about me and I don’t even notice cuz the screen in my eyes No interest in “TeeVee” from clams Mancini is nothing to clams Clam Valhalla: what a joke Buddha in a shell Something more like silence; like ‘get away from me’ That’s what clams want