beautiful,

though I wonder about inverting the last line?

I roll and float, a pale fish,
belly up, silent as the depths of ocean.
The world wheels and hurtles as I count the countless stars.

Terri )O(

----- Original Message -----
From: Arthur
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Tuesday, February 12, 2002 8:52 AM
Subject: new sub: Bathing by starlight



Bathing by starlight.

Here, where the round shouldered shrubs
drop petals on the skin of dark waters,
gleams the clear and bowered pool.

The night is an arbour of looming trees
and stars crackling high over the bush.
Strange constellations where cartwheeling Orion

tumbles the rest asunder.
I stand naked and cool, white as any petal,
sacked by fever, pallid and forked,

wedges of sudden bone; sentient, skeletal me,
lowered into the grip of chill water. Lulled by
the plashings of my swim and the loquacious stream,

I roll and float, a pale fish,
belly up, silent as the depths of ocean;
count the countless stars, as the world wheels and hurtles