Corinne Lee
Swimmer Lost in Lake (Midnight)
Bordering
the ochre bombsite were boutiques and condominiums,
fin-de-siècle dandies residingin each.
For shame, my love, the view we had
from those mullioned windowsat dawn.
Why is it that the best revelations
wake too late (e.g., to achieve a pristine soul, aliasesmust be
adopted). We pandered to moral panic. Yet where
can love be made but in a penthouse,wrapped
in the decisive face paint, multicolored garb
favored by warriors of our tribe? Our notpeering
downward. From life as A Letting Room.
Now a slower and stickierstroke
begins. Visions of the furred cup. Then an eye
in the plate’s center, observing—