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, foats, 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.