PORTRAIT AT THE LAKESHORE, MICHIGAN CITY, INDIANA
You stand over
The grit of the beach
Unbounded
By the pleasure
Of the water’s
Fastness
And your own lightness
In the summer air
Your bathing suit
Is of faded blue cotton
Ringed with yellow
Red and green stripes
Its two pieces
Holding exhaustedly
To your freckled skin
If I could hear that
Same laughter
Of yours tonight
In the cold dark
Of a Syracuse fall
I would weep
For the gorgeousness
Of it and the way
On that afternoon
And always it teased
Out other sounds
From the world
Of noise
A single splotch
Of dark hair lines
Your thigh and a
Brief sleeve of wind
Brushes against
The place of your sex
Exciting first one
Enclothed nipple
And then the other
You are unembarrassed
And even the unfeeling
Sand pinching our skin
In the dying–down wind
Applauds your disinterest
In shame and the lessening
Of our nearest joys