1: ON A BONE

In the swimmer eye of the lifeguard who dreams of faraway

a little rain lies on the sand the seaweed line inscribed by the water

from salt to ceiling the clouds play at shaping the continents

adrift on his chair while others whizz by on the beach

to stay in the shade with his referee’s body

he tallies up everyone’s points—will he know who I scrawl

at the edge of my towel falling out of said bounds with my finger

if for faulty legs I hit a bone in the road that’s got nil to do with you?

2: ON A STEP

Comes from what contrary to received ideas eagles climb

way high the interval: from Aeschylus to me (the mixup involves the head

and rocks) the careening cryptodire goes through the mind unfairly

in the end however there’s not but one step we gauge on the beach

I’ve been talking about by my body intact—which seems to raise

doubts in jellyfish form—by a sound so dully muffled

my tortoise makes upon crashing down by the flies

that bug vacationers duped by so much ado about little remains (to be seen).

3: ON YOUR BACK

You plug the door of your cave with a bit of brains

and with contentment we imagine ideas penetrate

more deeply in you than in us—the depth depends on the time

his mother never kept track of—blindly we’ll say what we want

on the spot on your back we’d dig extremely well a well

to throw an eye into lit from inside we’d rediscover the key

to a knowledge lost without our really realizing

what we’d see in there is love (even if that had nothing to do with it).

4: ON THE BUG

But after infancy so many names from Sylv and Georg to Paul plus -ette

served at random leaves of lettuce we keep our little mouth shut

time stops perhaps to better start over your breath

mingles weirdly with mine—I’d like to see your face—

everything is inversely fragile from you: the nail that itches the eye

that watches the tiny bug that inches up as beaches empty out

ants invade my arm and paradoxically I freeze

the scene in the fixer to force it to circulate (there’s nothing to see).

5: ON THE WORK

The one who trimmed your lashes c’mon hey knew a bit

about his work provided we honor the figure

eights we make the round ensemble turn (so where to focus the eyes

if not at the turn of each ray?) do you see human beings better now?

in the widest wide angle not that I know of but I’ll kill

the first who says different to the little kid I’m beguiling

his feet in the water I can if I want bestow my regard as a gift—

he’d see smoke you’d still get that that did not have naught to do with it.

6: ON THE MUSHROOM

It’s the dream moment for sending the pneumatic

inner tube vibe into the wall gunning my mushroom

throttle of a turtle I groove with the moves fakir Nefertiti wolf hup

-doggie good boy on the dash I bobble contra dance glide

I hot diggity dog in my flying slowmo saucer surfing the sea

of sand I leave castles in the dust but just inanely hit the p

in parasol that scrunches the bellows flat: lozenge of me

under bell of shell—there’s not a lot left here to see.

7: ON THE THUMB

On my knees to rock out on the back of your slope I slip

you’re a single shingle shy of a waterproof roof: sliding the others

around with my thumb on grounds that appear to me gradually

more and more flimsy re the truth I press on trying to clarify

the staunchly blue deal of the tiles of your dome

at each new puzzle arrangement the firmament wins

more matte to its tone plays the pretty pretty pitiless and the mystery

of your assembly grows without my having more to say on that score.

8: ON THE TONGUE

Despite the buxom is-the-sky-blue bosom perfume that turns

the head extending pops up atop a periscope across the wow

the prow pulls away from the shore—here imagine hands

or a stack of hardback terps going burp!—plunging into despair

I redouble my radar rotor—I saw nothing coming but worlds

engulfed already bubbling in my deep sea Diver Dan attire—I inhale

my very last lungful—you as well I’ll miss all of you too—

how breathtaking it is—with the tongue it’s no longer got whatsoever to do.