West OC Air

It's the air I love, outside the bar when the night's almost done.

I always make sure, as I am often the only sober one, to step back and take pause:  the uninhibited moments of people, people I love, in their truest graces.  Always a soft smile lit up by a cell phone screen, or a loud off-key hum, some tossed-off glance of content.  The air in West OC is the most potent in town, salty as a marooned fisher's net, salty as a gull's shriek, salty as a crease on the brow so deep the sun cant even get in.  One breath is a whole pocket of life, a whole city of air.  Tonight my brother is in town, his wife, my cousin and his wife, my mom and dad.  We walk to the car and I am sure to be the last one.  I am surveying, I am my own quiet happy, I savor the last moment stolen glances: my family.  The ones who mean the most.

They are on my mind, they are all I know.  They are allowing of me to say goodbye, and so I think, could I be any more blessed than this?

Could I be anymore--late night, full bellied settledness still on our tongues, music behind us, harbor horns, terns swoop the ground, the way my sister-in-law carries her bag in one hand demure at her side, the tender way my brother finds her back with his free arm, the smile my mom can not hide, o the smell...the West OC air--could I be anymore alive?