The Swim Poem by Oliver Roberts

Early this morning,
we swam in the sea,
drifted,
and drifted, on the hot waves.
drifted
The salt clung to your skin,
held your ferocious hips,
and floated you in circles around me.
I flickered in the blades of sun,
blindly like a mirror,
touching your rhythmic secrets.

Sometimes we held our breath,
closed our eyes and went under.
Waves passed over us,
I heard the swells gorging themselves on the sand,
and heard your nocturnal nakedness turning in the sheets.
I felt the current’s invisibility, warm, warm,
warm as your teeth markings on my neck and shoulders.
Underneath the sea,
we reached and touched and mixed
and resounded like drowning church bells.

When we surfaced the sun had fallen into its decorated vase,
you shone with it like a poignant child.
You smiled and parted my face,
and I felt you lie inside its two crescents.
I kissed you, overlapped you,
and we drifted again on the hot waves,
waiting for more reasons to stay in the water.