Drowning

Sun blurry as the lit wick inside a hurricane

lamp, salt, raw in its element, sloughing my throat

as I slipped into that archaic beneath,

saw the morning’s stinging tin, heard the whistle

and felt my body’s baggage hauled in

through finny waves, my arms dragging

yellow leis.

Tanagers loud against the bleached screen,

the teenager’s white-blond eyelashes as he laid me down.

I remember metal against my chest,

his hot and expert breaths,

thinking heartthrob, heartthrob,

my heart beginning its throb

beside the sea wasps’ sad gasping, their clear bodies

clouded with sand. Mercy in the vagaries

of weeds, mercy in thickets

of ugly fish, mercy, mercy me, listening

to the continuo of waves,

the boy above me

softly crying.