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Now reading
Arion
Hard to roll the wheelchair to poolside,
and the orderlies, swerving,
joke with him: how many quads
to unscrew a light bulb? How many
paras to unhook a bra? That one
he's heard, & the other one too.
Brakes on now, pool-water dimpled,
salt taste against his tongue as they
lower him, device a slapdash hybrid-
net, aluminum chair & canvas straps.
Above his shoulders, a tingling,
but the water's mostly taste
& memory, coalescing its restless forms:
Brighton Beach some thirty years gone,
his able muscled calves & thighs.
The dolphin spies him first from below,
legs dangling, though no more
useless-seeming to her
than any land-born thing's. She circles,
slower with each rotation,
& ever-closer, whirlpool & roil,
silvery trireme-prow of dorsal fin,
beak lathing wave, the blowhole's chuff.
& then the eyes meeting his,
until it's only the two of them here,
the orderlies gone, the wet-suited
keepers with pails of squid.
& he wants, like Arion, to sing.
So it's Gershwin at first, tentatively hummed,
& then "Norwegian Wood" & "I've Just
Seen a Face," so loud his voice-
she showed me her room-
is breaking. & now her beak,
open to the pink mouth, the jaws'
tympanic snap-isn't it good? . . .-
blunt teeth, & her cackling
high-pitched harmony--so I lit
a fire-nuzzled beak against
the salt-rinsed bristle of his beard.
O brine & glossololic swirl, their eyes
still locked, the water seething.
& when I awoke / I was alone... .