the city empties out

and the lake is still full of swans that don’t travel

but mate for life and good for them

hell yeah, swans

I keep drinking grapefruit beers

in between paddling

around lilly pads

and you are a watermelon slice

that looks good in a swimsuit

and puts joy on me

you have a bag of chips, salt and vinegar

crunch and laugh and please live thirty years longer than me because you are tonic for this sick sad earth, you know that?

look over there, someone is sailing a toy ship

making ripples on the water, making the reflected clouds, wiggle

let’s go kill it with this blunt instrument

and did you know you’ve also been singing in your sleep, accusations flying that I’ve been fucking my best friend

this friend who’s beautiful and spits death out so it burns up in the holy atmosphere, this friend with bones made of precious metal and skin that drinks up the sunshine

and I am, I am fucking my best friend

and we don’t wear a condom because swans don’t either

hell yeah, swans

my friend sings in her sleep and we do it all ways, when she wakes up

we might even do it in this boat if we can find some shade

so put down the potato chips, and never mind the people of the city that fell out a hole and appeared somewhere cooler and it’s hot here, almost the Fourth of July

and you’re smiling like a criminal that remembered there is a happiness to rob from everything

I’m smiling too, slouched and charlie horsed, and trying to pop a stubborn button and unzip a jammed fly.

I think we are about to screw under the branches of a twisted tree leaning out over the green water

a tree about to fall in the next big storm

Isn’t that a poem?