Hacking away

Tall tales frame small talk
With a walk on the beach passing time.
Beneath the veneer of a man swilling beer
You're a queer kind of king of sublime.

Hacking away at the ice of the day.

She loved you. She left you
A blue smudge of makeup in rose
Tinted gloss, decrying you lost
Embossed on the hem of your second-best clothes.

A seat on a bleached pallid beach
You teach me the essence of loss
Beneath the veneer of a man drinking beer
You're a sheer examplar of your cross.