Long ago
when I could still breathe
underwater
I'd watch as brightly colored fish
swam past
and feel my body
stretching back forever
into the reaches
of my coral cave
then suddenly I'd be
all teeth and jaws
lunging forward to snap up
some careless swimmer
no thought coming between
impulse and act

There was an ecstacy
in being weightless
so intimate a part
of the reef world
whose waves would rock me
as they passed above
whose currents set
my fins to undulating
there was a freedom then
that I've not felt
except in dreams
since I became a man