Patty Nash
"Here is my buffer of goodwill.
Here I am blurrily oh
my gosh don't
I love adventure. Dolphins
etc. Here I look good thanks
to the intrepid, friendly
guide who zoomed
in and took the picture beaming back
we are holding in our hands right
now. All my friends from all across
the United States’ve gathered here today
to pamper, explore, relax, exalt,
et al., altogether, all together, all right
here at this destination
wedding 'til
the formality begins at 5 p.m.
sharp tonight. Take this waterbottle. Take this
cut fresh fruit. Look
at the polkadot gratuitous
bikinis—figurines
compressed in the infinity
pool, swallowing
coconuts filled
with 'tropical' 'flavors' somewhere off
in the distance—like always
—the pics won't do the bliss
justice—like picture
my father, the photographer, ha ha fumbling
cellphone into camera
mode, clamoring
from sinkhole to the manmade
wooden jetty, so ineptly such
that taking
the photo, the flash
overexposed—digital image not fully self-
stabilized—now we only
see the fuzzy turquoise backdrop
into which I'm telling you
right now I
swam googlyeyed right
into a primordial crypt, duly kept
doggypaddling
deeper, over-and-under
-whelmed with water—reader, watcher, envision
me, floundering
to the faraway snorkeling
sightseers,
bellyflopped eliciting zero shock at the
gasping
sound of water
I made evincing
my foot against
subsurface rock in shadow
subsiding intruders like me to make
bleed. Please
take my body indulging
the water blurring
with red
I incur in this
venue locating this
body, collapsed. Take the fact that nobody
knows how this landmark was
made—only how
it elapsed—
degraded—
in 'bad weather'
—millennia of it—that what makes this
geomorphological lookout oh
my god so amazing also renders it nigh
-impossible to remain
as-is at length—
though beyond this facet—further information—sorry,
I lack
—as right at that
imperative moment
in the tour, other tourists
in our midst unfiltered in
with questions, with regard
to the 'paranormal,' and so
intrusively, that though
there's so much I still
would like to know, this's all that
I can say:
I hobbled out and warped
my foot in ragged towel in the glare
of daylight—today
I've just a little welt marking where
I remember the location close
to that nearby wherever
it was my father failed to hear me
splash—who snapped
this pic in which I am not at
present visible—though in it, I promise
that me is smiling
wide, regardless. I like it better
than all the others. Are you feeling squeamish
said the guide, handing me a puckered plastic
brownbag sandwich, juice,
packaged pastry, minutes later,
I came to know him meaning queasy—listen,
I'm telling you:
I said no thank you. I feel fine.
I remember this all
too well."