The water that I love,
the way it looks through they eye,
the dolphin eye of it,
the wail of the sea lion
in it after dinner,
its relationship to fingers
and even softer parts, aunt Sonia's
diving board and the line
I never crossed with my cousin,
the smel of chlorine, the barbeque
and the mystery of smoke,
someone yelling "don't eat before you swim,"
or don't swim after it,
the way it follows the path of least
resistance, political water,
mahatma Gandhi's water, the "your highness" in it,
the necessaryness of it, the very color of it,
the color of everything else in it,
the child born into it, from it,
remembering it years later, how she
may have felt while immersed in it,
her the lover, and her the mother,
the son on top of it for so long,
twenty years on the water, the red beards
of water, the salty water on the tongue
and in the throat, the way water
makes your forget god and think
you're immortal, the way you remember
rooms you swear you've never been in
but can't forget... the way it makes you swear
at the beach, above the knees,
and when everywhere else is too dry,
too expensive, too away from it..