The Sunbathers

NED 0'GORMAN

NED O'GORMAN

THE SUNBATHERS

Aswamp with nakedness, pulled to a consummate of body

they lie like vivid angels on the sand.

Man's splash of chest, fey edifice of woman's neck

sing in the sun's sweet graphic arms.

shackled to a hidden north buried in their ribs

they move in the shadow of that fire-tree

whose branches beat them like a waterfall

to make them hallow eves of burning bush.

I think bright Zeus, bug-o-the-world, balancer,

would weep to lie all mongreled, a botch of copper,

beside some curious wench, hot for deus,

after a long day sunning by the Phlegethon

too fagged to kiss. Once burned.

the heart desists a little and then with every fire

desists a little more to finally cry

and break its casement through. I call it havoc,

this dumb disheveling in the air when flesh

must meet its molestation there; no girl,

no startled nerve, no mouth a fool of sighs,

but the sullen firing of the tracing skin.