The Flowers

That first year in the tropics, we’d swim out farther
than we dared—though we did it—until we reached the sandbar
almost out of sight of land, where the gently-lapping water
was so shallow we could sit down and let its gentle rocking
soothe us until we were drowsy—not tired
exactly but half-dreaming, gazing at the vastly deeper
water beyond us and the darker currents running there.

We’d wade along that sandy ridge watching minnows scatter
and the bigger fish flash like flint and disappear.
Pelicans, anhinga and black skimmers let us come close—
somehow our human threat was almost vanished there.

We’d moved from the gray north; our bones still ached with cold.

That ocean smelled like flowers whose names we hadn’t learned yet,
and it was warm enough for us to take our suits off
and sing like little children, and talk like children back and forth,
not baby-talk but a kind of innocence—

then we’d push off to swim in, across the calm but teeming water
back to the city with its dancing and its rage
and its many kinds of flowers whose names we also didn’t know,
though we were determined to learn them.

*

Michael Hettich’s most recent book of poetry, The Halo of Bees: New and Selected Poems, 1990-2022 was published in May 2023 by Press 53. His poetry, essays, and reviews have appeared widely in many journals and anthologies, and he has published more than a dozen books of poetry across four decades. His honors include several Individual Artist Fellowships from the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs, The Tampa Review Prize in Poetry, the David Martinson/Meadowhawk Prize, a Florida Book Award, the Lena M. Shull Book Award from the North Carolina Poetry Society, and the inaugural Hudson-Fowler Prize from Slant magazine at the University of Central Arkansas. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Miami and taught for many years at Miami Dade College where he was awarded an Endowed Teaching Chair. His website is michaelhettich.com.