Swandive 

    She of the hollowly brink-of-drowning eyes

          sunken in a face spookacious with appeal

               a pallid little lighthouse emergent from its frame

                    of long dark hair and neobeatnik turtleneck

                         looks up as if to gauge the distance

                              launches forth as though from a springboard

                                   boleynlike neck outstretched now in offering

                                        she lands lipfirst with a less-than-romantic

                                             splat and hangs suspended there on tiptoe

                                                  for the mouth-to-mouth resuscitative moment

                                                       it takes for her slender arms to swivel round

                                                                                                                   join in and execute a clean snug clinging link

                                                                                                                        about the corresponding neck of the caressee.

Originally published in The Lithic Review
(Bellevue, WA: The Prehistoric Press) No. 3, Spring 1991
Copyright © 1991, 2004  by P. S. Ehrlich
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