Los Angeles, Again

While passing through, a splurge
without occasion at the Casa Del Mar.
Cocktails by the pool. There, and there,
such women, in their notional outfits,
upwelling in the heart.
Beyond the gates, car-stoked arteries
boring through the smog.

Sunlight and memory,
the alchemy of death, of revision.
Should that h in heart be capitalized?
Who now in all of California
would know? He’d have smiled at that,
my old teacher.
A smile without a face.