Recently in 2005 Category

The veins on the back
of your tan-coloured hand
rise up like snakes of sand,
swirl across endless desert:
fishscales that shift and ripple,
catch light in flash movement
against the etch of settled silt
beneath shallow water.

I expect your hands to feel dry
against my face, expect the crosshatch
creases to chafe me. But there is no
desiccant clutch, no sandpaper scrape;
your desert hands do not pull moisture
from my lips; instead the dry warmth
brushes my skin with warm weightlessness.

Slowly you blow against me, hot breath fills
my ears, my eyes. My lungs struggle against
your increasing heaviness.

The veins on your forehead rise to the hot
surface, ripple with intensity.
I am thirsty, and into my open mouth
you deliver sand.  

Wind gusts smooth the field of long grasses
bend the tall thin blades to their green-silver underside;
Dip and ripple. Swish and splash.
The breeze blows grass into sea.

We dive headfirst into cool greenness, arms part
blades with each stroke, legs sweep past jade stalks
that curve in our wake. We pause for watery kisses,
tongues tasting salt and green sweetness.

I could swim here for hours with you, slice through
shining wind-waves as the air rushes above. But you
begin to feel the familiar pressure, the need for breath:
it draws you to the surface with brutal buoyancy.

You explode into air, suck lungfuls into empty chambers
as I wait suspended in familiar green below. I wrap fins around
your ankles, pull you down into the swell, know the short time
you can spend submerged, the necessity of breath.

Small bubbles leave your lips, travel toward
the surface. And I wish for a current to catch you,
endow you with the gift of gills,
draw the mammalhood from your blood.