June is Friday: weary of winter
exhausted by spring, brightened
by hope of rest and warmth
and green things stretching
toward the dear sun of summer.

July, then, is Saturday:
brown-limbed, easy, moving slow
through the long hours
of sand, of fish lifted
by clear waves with the light
shining through, of warm
nights with Mars glowing gold 
near the rocking moon.

August, alas, must be Sunday:
there’s still time, the days
still balmy and long,
the sun still hot, Mars still
bright in the warm night sky,
the sea still glittering 
with the coins of the sun.
But the shadow at the end
looms longer every day.

And then it’s September:
a cheap and painful parody
of summer – hotter than August
but the days grow shorter
and we are stuck wherever
we have to be as wildfires 
devour the hills of spring
leaving us pining for July

when time stretched out
before us on the sand,
naked and smiling.
                        

I will not dwell 
upon the evils 

of the world 
while the sun 

setting red 
burnishes the surf 

a black dog leaps 
in coppery waves

sea water foams 
at our feet 

and the half moon 
glows, a ghost 

in the shore’s 
wet mirror.
                        

in clear water, prism ribbons 
rippling on a flat white bottom

in the calm green waters of the bay
where the mind wanders in an endless lap

in a pool whose chlorine smell stings 
while snow dances down dark windows 

on a chilly day when rain pocks the surface
tattooing my arms as they reach wet air

over kelp columns rising through coastal swells, 
garibaldi feathering among the amber leaves

in water roiled by wind where I become
a fish sheltered in the pond’s calm sway

I want to pull water past me again, thread myself 
– weightless – through the water’s unseen eye.