I Drink Bronze Light

Great American summer lakes
right now I am flying above you
through a rare cloudless transparent sky
back to the city where it is always
cold even in summer
The round hole I press my face against
shows only a blue expanse
with white sails below
speckled exactly the way
the Aegean would have been
three thousand years ago
if one could have seen it from above
maybe riding in the dark claw
of a god who didn’t care
Through the round window
weird white light
bounces off the cubes in my glass
of clear diet soda that tastes
completely theoretical
Huge blue lake I do not know
which one you are
maybe Superior I can’t see land
on either side and for a moment
feel I have just woken up
to wonder if there is an ocean
I have forgotten along our route
Now I see some giant black
thunderclouds we are steering
away from and I wish I were
on the ground in the seaside town
we are now flying over
named for a general
in the French and Indian wars
For a moment it seems
someday we will choose
to spend a summer there
swimming every day
then buying some ice cream
and walking the faded blue boards
back into town where evening
awaits us holding fireflies
and a low barely perceptible
air conditioner hum
When it gets dark we will go
our skin still hot with radiation
to the new restaurant
and calmly discuss the election
things are going to get better
our wise choices fill us with peace
not to mention cake and such
a particular love like the one
I have for the green scrunchie
in her hair and the t-shirt
with the mermaid she wears
only when we go to sleep
I will be with her for a long time
because unlike Columbus
lying to his men about how far
they had gone and who first saw
light on the new continent
to all new things I discover
I mean no harm and do not
even secretly believe
anything I find on our journey
will make me live forever

 

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