Christopher Salerno

And tiny are the tugboats crisscrossing the sound

with what may as well be arms

no longer playthings unalloyed

we are the world again

deciphering one another’s code in the campground dusk

storming a small, bay-stained beach

where all see-saws reach a comfortable pause

and all this digging will be archaeology

given the body’s mammalian bays, lovers

swimming in, out of tributaries

beneath the bridge of your long johns where it’s raining again

and you pucker, what we were born to do

or feel up little fish (in an immense mirror

of water) I was going to wade in

but the difference between your bait and mine

is a free-spinning skirt

as detonated day doubles back with variable speed

isn’t the power house transitive

and any song, el tempo adagio, worth singing

always you will get high it’s amazing

though the moon will rise over you

and the tent and the guns