a tropic fog

I'm smoking you
like some distorted twig
that I drew with my toes in the sand.
That singular day
on an earthbound cloud
when the water was hot
hot as our bodies
only hotter
and we swam with the sharks
circling below
we swam so deep and
bird island was beyond our strokes
though it looked so near.
I left my sketchpad on the blanket
and the roots
like inverted candelabras
took hold while we swam
as the cold Caribbean tiger sharks coasted
we floated on our backs
languid
laughing
at the commotion of the birds
the locomotion and aerial tumult.
Gentle waves tossed we two
into a sandy nest
beneath the shade
of charcoal branches
and I smoked you
in a fever
under shivering shadow twigs
we flickered in and out.