Souvenir

She is floating in a pool in a purple bikini
admiring the strange flat picture of her
tanned torso beside the preteen periwinkle.
Somewhere deep inside the body, it is beginning to form,
that substance readying flesh for performance,
and soon, she will unfold those frog leg wings and
transform.
This purple bikini will suddenly
mean so much more.
Her tanned skin will be a canvas for hands,
this piece of cloth a smoke signal,
and her face, a souvenir.

The Lakes of Canada

My hunger for freshwater is obscene.
I wake writhing from a dream, reaching
though dry sheets for a handful of it;
for the cold, crisp splash of the glassy surface
on my palm, around my ankles, then
caressing my cheeks, cradling flesh.
The embrace of lakes will always satisfy
more than any other, for there
one can return to the womb,
folding in among the reeds and fishes,
moving without the thrill of gravity,
kicking out from the sand into the great,
cool, center of the world.