[Near my grandparents’ home at the outskirts of town, a stone quarry was established, then abandoned, nearly a hundred and fifty years ago. The early blasting hit water, and after many soundings were taken, the management concluded that they had uncovered a bottomless lake, fed, they surmised, by a sizeable underground river.]

Under a pine and confusion:

oh! Tangles of clothes: (come

on, silly, nobody’s here:) and

naked as fish, a boy and a girl.

(Nobody comes here: nobody looks:

nobody watches us watching us

watch.) Except the police.

Thighs slide into the moon.

Humbly, into the stars: Mirrored,

flashes a father’s red eye, a

blue-bitten mother’s red lip: No

Swimming Allowed In The Quarry

At Night. (Anyway, nevertheless

and moreover: feel how warm!) here,

among the reflections. (Feel the

water’s mouth and its hands, feel

them imitate mine: can there truly

be any danger?) danger allowed in

the quarry at night? can people

really have drowned? (Now my body

is only water alive, and aeons

ago you were a fish growing

legs —) well, dust to dust, a

curious notion. But quarry water on

dust green with seed! Quarry water

forbidden on land after dark! What

young forms of vegetation emerge.

What new colors of light.

 

 

Photo By: Matt Clark