At the Swimming Pool

Conversation splashes across the pool.  
"Who's a good girl?" sings a father 
to the baby held aloft.

"If we make it that long," 
joke the old couple 
making next-year plans.

"Marco," calls a boy. "Marco. ..."
Then, the giggled "Polo"
pulls him forward. 

Words like breath as we swim.

Marco ... Polo ...

You call "Marco" and listen.
Just the splash of water. 
You dive ahead, lunge blind,
thrash. You try so hard  
to connect. You wait, 
breathing hard. 
You wait. 
You wait.


Polo.

Last Day in Scotland

You left so much undone. 
The closest you got to the castle
was a Royal Mile tee-shirt shop.
Some essential Scottish flavor 
went untasted because you didn't 
make time for the whisky tour. 
And the Writer's Museum. Wasn't that 
supposed to be your first stop?
Hell, you couldn't even make it 
out of Edinburgh. Now all you have 
is one thin day to get it right.
You hold your latte as if awaiting 
benediction. 

But who's to say 
you aren't (mmm that milky warmth 
is good) receiving it right now? 
The window of the rented flat 
is open to the morning. Rain 
drifts in. Hello. Chants and drumbeats 
from the cobbled street's parade
alight like birds. Good morning. 
What is it you should do? 
What is it you should ever do?
Get up. Go out the door. Receive 
the day in friendship. A voice
is calling you. She says let's go.

Riding a Bicycle in a Suit of Armor

Riding a bicycle in a suit of armor
is still riding, I tell myself, and better
than some other pursuits -- like climbing
and surfing and love -- that I abandoned 
after simple slips submerged me 
in forces I could not control. 
Now my life is people passing on the left. 
I do not mind. I do not mind. I ...
I keep my helmet visor down and swelter 
in this metal. But I'm safe if I should fall.

Her Trip's

Woman on a meandering errand 
of her own delighted devising 
falls on her face in the ordinary
and (you'd think) serendipitizing-

ly uncovers the keys to a kingdom. 
Her awe erupts as oohs and aahs and jeezes
over all the odds and ends now she somehow 
sees and, most surprisingly, seizes. 

Kinetic electric urges surge frenetic and emerge,
submerge, and merge kaleidoscopic. She believes!
And laughing she gives in dives in thrives on and 
lives on in scintilla merely she perceives.

Watch her now with wonder while she ascends 
her whorling vortex dream in hops and skips.
Blown kisses float back down to you from 
the particle-beam stream that her trip's.

The New World

Look there, Love, 
across the starboard rail

a new world rises 
nascent from the sea,

arches its green spine, 
and belches howls

up to the gods. 
The old ones have foretold

a refuge here from thirst, 
a respite here from doubt. 
They have foretold 

a gentle soil

rich for growing 
orchards, children, us.

As we glide these 
last few meters into

shore, we must remember 
everything they said: 
"It is a place 
that will hurl hail

from metal skies, 
and crack and buckle underfoot. 
The land will leap at you 
with teeth, and seethe 
irascible with ice.

Be quick! Be lithe! Revise 
your maps, revise again — 
no one's been exactly here.

The land will change 
and we will change.

There now we have landed. 
Here we go.

The Metric System

Commence, if you must, 
the conversion
of tulips to Celsius,
anger to kilometers,
and magenta to something
ending in zero.
But pray keep the pint
to remind us we're no gods.
We are human and we thirst, 
both for perfection 
and for beer.