At night, flowers of corals bloom (illustrated)

At night, flowers of corals bloom orange and yellow--
branches of underwater cherry blossoms, heavy and ripe.
Soft sponges of tangerine and grape juice pad the walls
while their pulp carpets the low stair steps
that climb down deep from the sky.



Lionfish spread their gossamer tendrils
and take flight on their vermilion wings, mane aflame.
Thousands of eyes, more than their sisters in heaven,
shine light back and keep an unblinking watch over the evening.
Bright red fish with gashes of iridescent warpaint
that shout glances in insult throughout the day
sink like weary children into beds of anemones, at its end.



Feather stars languidly stretch their arms and curl back,
daintily skip home over oiled staghorns and antlers.
Spanish dancers that whirl their skirts in tempo
to the percussion fish beat on the reef,
slow down to bow and curtsy,
as the hush spreads over like a blanket.




At the heart of the sea
lies a little boy
who slumbers with his fists fast against his cheek
whose breath pulls the tide in
whose every sigh rushes it back to the shore
inexorably
again and again
until the dawn.

Heretofore Unwritten Rules of Geekhood

After almost nine years of living with a geek, I learned something one night. These code warriors live by an esoteric Bushido, some of which I hazard my life to make public:

1. Geeks do not share their notebook chargers. To each his own power supply.
2. Geeks may be slobs on the outside, but they keep their computer desktops clean. Desktop cleanliness is next to godliness.
3. Geeks religiously check for Software Updates. If your computer crashed because you haven't installed the latest OS update, it's your bad.
4. Geeks name their machines. And pick a gender, first of all.
5. Geeks use BB Edit for word processing. Anyone using MS Word is a pussy.
6. Nobody, but nobody, should go to a geek for tech support without the exact error message. "Something went wrong and now my computer doesn't work" will not cut mustard.
7. Never try to second-guess a geek when he instructs you on how to fix your machine. Instructions are sacred; the word "ReadMe" should be taken literally.
8. Geeks communicate in binary, prime numbers or Fibonacci sequences. If geeks had bars, they'd brawl over who knows pi up to a higher decimal place.



Maybe my next computer will be gay...