the street lamp flickered with the evening buzz
of electric and bugs: moths of milky translucence,
they flit about the mock'd moonlight, unaware that
they, like Icarus, danced too close to the flame.
i waded into the ocean waves, the warmth of the
tide rising up to greet me, its foamy white fingers
stroking the skin of my thighs, my hips, until
i became it, and she became me - and guided
i was, into the shimmering darkness below.
all around me the luminescence of humming
neon fishes, their gangly tendrils
and their bulging bodies coming to life
like excited little light bulbs.
below me a sunken artifact of lives long left,
a black and wooden wreck resting peacefully
in the softness of the sands - and surrounding
it, dancing eels, winding and wiggling to the
pulse of the ocean heart.
and at their center, a face,
one that i knew, or at least i thought,
one that i recognized, i thought.
loose the shadows that fell
across the nakedness of her pale body,
gliding, twirling, tumbling with grace,
refractions of the starry sky beyond
dancing across the melody of her ribs.
as she swam to me, the eels blossomed
around her, bursting like so many dancing
fireworks, illuminating the ocean night.
when she touched me, i felt currents through me,
something in me stirring to the surface.
i did not know her name or her voice, yet
my heart closed and opened all the same,
every fibrous spindle around it
shuddering within her small hands.
and when we kissed, no longer had i need
of air, nor the ground below me, but
rather i became of she, a part of the ocean,
faraway from the roaring cars, and
the electric daylight, and the subtle
humming all throughout the cities, in
their hands, in their heads, the words
typed out over the whites of their eyes,
stuck there and lost to the zephyr swirling
around them - that same i followed to her,
deep into the ocean, where i stayed to become
part of her world.