Plain American Language

The reach of dogs is immense--
running, creaming the hell out of
the frisbee, the jump not known
to human fingers and heels. Swamps
gardened and lingering in the backyard,
this is Florida, this is probably
the bayou, this is an immense mess of
bugs and frogs and a thickness
I can taste. The soup-smell of density;
the incongruousness of walking beside
pretty places, a hand to hold and the
feeling of walking upwards. Once
my heart fluttered and those thoughts
attached to it were you, dancing
in a dress that wore you, that clung to
your hips, melted the floor. Once,
when the water across the river had
risen, you dreamed about its length,
the wonderful words of the sun
and the row boat that looked like a wing
hanging on the lower lip of the drifting earth.