Another Good Poem

Swimmers

Tossed
by the muscular sea,
we are lost,
and glad to be lost
in troughs of rough

love. A bath in
laughter, our dive
into foam,
our upslide and float
on the surf of desire.

But sucked to the root
of the water-mountain --
immense --
about to tip upon us
the terror of total

delight --
we are towed,
helpless in its
swell, by hooks
of our hair;

then dangled, let go,
made to race --
as the wrestling chest
of the sea, itself
tangled, tumbles

in its own embrace.
Our limbs like eels
are water-boned,
our faces lost
to difference and

contour, as the lapping
crests.
They cease
their charge,
and rock us

in repeating hammocks
of the releasing
tide --
until supine we glide,
on cool green

smiles
of an exhaling
gladiator,
to the shore
of sleep.

--May Swenson