Poetry of Issue #7        Page 6

The Last Swimmers

Because the generation moribund in the narrows of unthinkingness
will never someday answer our nocturnal calls

not even with a reedy voice tuned by thinning vocal chords
not even in those patient intervals of water glass and lift

we descend via bathysphere for cockle and pearl fillip
dragged by undertow, fishy eyes a full fathom's rest.

But once there were dirt roads and muzzy quilts speckled with wild rose;
there were half-prayers and buckets to catch primeval rain.

There was the scribbled cove, trout and sunnies strung on waterweeds,
graves we dug with twigs for a palmful of skeleton.

But was there also a lynx, its crouch mimicking the shadowy granite?

Until it lolled on its back, wind riffling tufted ears,
sun trapped between the thumbprint spots. A stumpy tail.

The pretty birds it ate; molt of afternoon trickling through air.

  Carol Alexander