REBECCA HAZELTON


                                     



SELF PORTRAIT AS A VERY GOOD DAY

 

 

Behind dark glasses I am enormously present
                                      wading in a pool of flickering light
                          algal at the edges
                                                like a sick green dream of California

where dragonflies dip and skim
       the surface of the lightly poisoned water
                                                         some of them
                                      coupling on the fly
                   as if sex wasn’t already awkward

when I fuck I hardly levitate at all
                                  and when I dive
                             beneath the water
       I want to be detached

from the searing world above but how
                                                does one stop caring

when there are so many
                     voices calling
                          where are you where are you
                   come up there are snacks

so I swim back
                          to frozen grapes and lemonade
                   to the teenaged boys strolling by
                          with fishing poles and bait

while the young girls spin
                 on tire swings and scream to go faster
as if there was some shortage in the world
                          of speed or disaster

 

                                                                                                      

 

      

 

                                   

 

 


TYPO 28