As I / As / I

Dear Red Airplane:

This version calls for an armadillo, those summers spent
in Mississippi, in love with you. With you. Like a tight
scar to be walked across, I've been watching you.

I wanted to touch your / little
kids swimming beneath the surface / spiny bodies / my ears
opening up the stare / staying, don't you
do things just like me?

Its dull shell molded with gravel / I think
About its inner side / and only a few tubes
For parts / arma.

Seconds at a time, saw you with your head
bent back. Way back.

Cataclysmic caw caw / some wildish colors
of beast flinging the flight out of wide
wings / shoulder birds, our eyes to the ocean / buy me
one of those shirts daddy please please, so
I will remember / where are we now?

Sort of cunning sound of water and being sucked
up by that, now, how to paint waves on this canvas: now, stuck.
I love you I love you I'm tired of this all these women, this one
woman, the way I watch you, I'm still staring--
howtopaintwaves.

Your names all separated / under
water, the sound / love / seeming like
no no steeped in salt / s-s-s-s-s seawater
stings my teeth / bom-bom-bom-bom coming of
the shark, parting if I have to
of your body with my / please

Today the dogs run the beaches
punching the air with their mallet sounds,
charged by their special summer constellation,
so they do know these distances ourph-ourph-ow-oh
a straight shot they've punctured
from here to their stars

Complaining, this version calls for gravel. This version
calls for my father, love. This version emitting its no no.
It is / don't you feel it / calling itself out.

Robin Reagler

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