from the dipping pool’s belly onto the underwater ledge: tropical afternoon weekday sunlight tattered by the palm frond’s fringe makes shadow skeletons, flexible bones of light’s blockage on the patio pavers. Among the leaves Jackson Pollock splatters of sun so that shadow moves into light, light slips into shadow, what is bright is exchanged for what is dull, what is dull is broken into what is bright. My white parts glow, the migrating birds spy before taking flight, the motorized waterfall seduces gravity, the dog sips from my plastic cup of ice water, sneezes, laps some more, & the sky is an obnoxious, clear, fun blue without a single cloud but with the occasional plane slitting across it. I pick up my book. It’s the same story. A daydreamer dreaming about the dreams of the rich & famous, daydreaming about being rich & famous, what being rich & famous tastes like— does it taste like this? Does it taste like late spring on an island, when the buds begin to spill their odor, does it taste like the beetle between the grackle’s beak, the condensation of this cup of cool water sweating in the sweet & wooly late afternoon sun, does it taste like the waxy sunshine pooling in the cupping hands of leaves, does it taste like the freedom of being naked & invisible in my backyard, wasting a few hours with a book while the sun scatters splinters of light on my glowing shoulders, does it taste like the water in my hair, on my lips, like you, covered in sweat & tired, coming home early to find me, does it taste like that this ecstasy, like raw day broken open & sucked, like my body greeting your body, how lips & skin taste bitter, like yolk, like a dream spoiling in the acid sun?