Año Nuevo

after Charlie Smith

By Mini Racker

In Año Nuevo, I combed through crushed mussel shells
and broken deer pelvises like papier-mâché masks
until the caves spit the ocean back at me and the water shone

like a last will, the wind wailing and the sand, which no one
bothered to clear, piled up in heaps at noon while
the male elephant seals charged at each other

and dark pups poked their noses out where they didn’t
belong, their mothers tossing sand for makeshift
air-conditioning, as if flipping burgers, and I had a sliced avocado

sandwich on the picnic bench and chattered
to the moon-skinned boy from Santa Cruz, saying
I’m here to finally see the world and he said it can’t be done.

Mini Racker ’18 is both a poet and a mechanical engineer and therefore hasn’t yet composed a cohesive career plan.