Snorkeling, Riomar Beach Club, Summer

Stretched out onto the surface of a wide ocean
My sweaty, lotioned back tans in the sun
My belly seems pale, dull from below
Or bloated from above

I swim like a frog in a ditch with arms
Or am I like a sea snake
With smooth, wet green-silver scales
And no arms

If I could be so fluid
I feel I must be, in the water
I feel so alive, the water is life, the water Is
But I am Not

No slime protects my scales
My loose skin is slick with lotion instead
Leaking oil onto the surface of the clean ocean¹
I am obscene here
And I have hands

But I could never hold a fish
Even when I had one on a hook
Or gasping underneath my foot
All quicksilver, slipperiness, wriggling
Gasping gills
Scales coming off
Dull, pale and slick in my hands

I wriggle and twitch, I swim
With my arms and legs, they taught me how
How to lift my head to breathe
How to dive deep
But they didn’t tell me what I would see

And with arms and legs pulling
With fear rushing me to the surface
I realized I could dive in, but never leap out
All green-silver flashing in the sun
Pale or tanned my belly only rises and floats

But my eyes could flash
If not dulled by a mask
Or always looking underneath
Underneath the rocks
What is underneath the rocks?²

They had to pull me out once
When I was first starting my lessons
I was a wriggling scarlet slipperiness
With no scales
Except the one on which they weighed me

They were able to hold me too
For they had quick, firm hands
But I flashed once then, in the glare of the lights
Before I breathed in nothing but air

Now salt shrivels my cells
As I let the water wash over me
Twenty-seven years later, I cannot breathe it in
So my yellow lung pierces the ocean’s surface
And I exhale fiercely, air into air

Weigh me now, I have no scales and I float
Perhaps if I empty myself here at the surface
My lungs will collapse and fold
Perhaps inside out, I am a fish

If I succumb to my desire
Dive deep and swim underneath the rocks
Let the water go through me again
If the water is life, and in me the water
I could be the miracle
I could be a child of water³

Then I would swim naked to the shore
And crawl atop the dune, cross the blackened street
And belly-up to the bar
I ask for a glass
Empty, on the rocks
And fiercely exhale water into wine
Show them the miracle
The empty vessel emptily filled

               Air is in water, water in air
               Whiskey is water and water is wine⁴

Then I would tell them all, tell them all⁵
What is underneath the rocks
The emptiness in the dark water
The emptiness in a dark room
The emptiness inside us
When we know what will become of us
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust
And sand, sand, sand⁶
Eternally shifted in the dark
Water

¹The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald. “As you first see him he wonders frequently whether he is not without honor and slightly mad, a shameful and obscene thinness glistening on the surface of the world like oil on a clean pond…”
²The Wasteland by T.S. Eliot. “There is shadow under this red rock, /(Come in under the shadow of this red rock), /And I will show you…. /I will show you fear in a handful of dust/…. If there were water/And no rock/If there were rock/And also water/…. But there is no water”
³”The Lifeguard” by James Dickey. “Stepping outward from earth onto water/in quest of the miracle/…. I am thinking of how I may be/The savior of one/…. And hold in my arms a child/Of water, water, water.”
⁴“Swan, Swan, Hummingbird” by REM. “Whiskey is water and water is wine.”
⁵The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot. “…I am Lazarus, come from the dead, /Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all…”
⁶see footnote #3.

6/21/98