The Swimmer

The afternoon foreclosing, see

The swimmer plunges from his raft, |

Opening the spray corollas by his act of war-

The snake heads strike

Quickly and are silent.

Emerging see how for a moment,

A brown weed with marvelous bulbs,

He lies imminent upon the water ~

While light and sound come with a sharp passion

From the gonad sea around the poles

And break in bright cockle-shells about his ears.

He dives, floats, goes under like a thief

Where his blood sings to the tiger shadows

In the scentless greenery that leads him home

A male salmon down fretted stairways

Through underwater slums... .

Stunned by the memory of lost gills

He frames gestures of self-absorption

Upon the skull-like beach;

Observes with instigated eyes

The sun that empties itself upon the water

And the last wave romping in

To throw its boyhood upon the marble sand.