re-write of Finnish Skinny Dipping Poem
Finnish Skinny Dipping
Red eyes seal sear-ed lungs, suffocating tsunamis of heat, pulsating shivers.
A Finn-built sauna on a Minnesotan lake radiates anticipation into an electric black night.
Granma’s screen-clad door slams, calm kept in, cold kept out.
Clatter of wood on wood cheers for me as I traverse the distance between comfort
and preparation.
Have to run. Callused bare feet make screaming contact with concrete
cracked from repetitive freezing and thawing.
Pebbled grit gives way to freshly-mowed grass of shockingly sharp tips
en-route to Grandpa’s cedar dock.
Numbed feet now explain that splintered and decaying planks moaning under my fleeting weight
could give way before I do.
Breath escapes
quicker than warmth.
Submersion.
Epidermal explosion.
Slate blank mind
chalks-up the moment.
Veins constrict,
transport liquid pain
through labyrinths of solace.
This is
barren white tundras
unexplored in bare skin,
abandoned hockey rinks
and Zambonie graveyards.
Resurfacing.
Choking on precipitation posing as air.
Surreal intensity short-circuits
an exposed
frost-bound system.
I am
sushi served
on a bed of dry ice.
What was once a body combustible,
is now hollow piping
reflecting distant,
white-hot frigidity
of fire-balled stars.
Rush the sauna. A dizzying humidity induces restless fatigue and contemplations
of another round. Finnish malaria is skinny dipping fever.
Hot pink beach towels encase my wilted body, barely able to straighten out
kinked icicle clothespin limbs.
Before obstinate armor melts, fumbling hands and dancing feet acknowledge rusting hinges screaming support.
Red eyes seal sear-ed lungs, suffocating tsunamis of heat, pulsating shivers.
A Finn-built sauna on a Minnesotan lake radiates anticipation into an electric black night.
Granma’s screen-clad door slams, calm kept in, cold kept out.
Clatter of wood on wood cheers for me as I traverse the distance between comfort
and preparation.
Have to run. Callused bare feet make screaming contact with concrete
cracked from repetitive freezing and thawing.
Pebbled grit gives way to freshly-mowed grass of shockingly sharp tips
en-route to Grandpa’s cedar dock.
Numbed feet now explain that splintered and decaying planks moaning under my fleeting weight
could give way before I do.
Breath escapes
quicker than warmth.
Submersion.
Epidermal explosion.
Slate blank mind
chalks-up the moment.
Veins constrict,
transport liquid pain
through labyrinths of solace.
This is
barren white tundras
unexplored in bare skin,
abandoned hockey rinks
and Zambonie graveyards.
Resurfacing.
Choking on precipitation posing as air.
Surreal intensity short-circuits
an exposed
frost-bound system.
I am
sushi served
on a bed of dry ice.
What was once a body combustible,
is now hollow piping
reflecting distant,
white-hot frigidity
of fire-balled stars.
Rush the sauna. A dizzying humidity induces restless fatigue and contemplations
of another round. Finnish malaria is skinny dipping fever.
Hot pink beach towels encase my wilted body, barely able to straighten out
kinked icicle clothespin limbs.
Before obstinate armor melts, fumbling hands and dancing feet acknowledge rusting hinges screaming support.