Skin Diving

The snorkel is the easiest woodwind.

Two notes in the chalumeau:

rising and falling.

Here is the skin of sleep,

the skin of reading, surfaces

inseparable from depths.

How far does the light go down?

Wouldn't we like to know.

I love this exact and calm

suspense, the way the spirit is said

to hover above a deathbed,

curious and tender as it is

detached, a cloud on the water,

a cloud in the sky,

as if desire were already

memory. Just as a diction

predicts what you might say

next, an emotion loves its chums.

But here, in poise and in hard thought,

I look down to find myself happy.