By Ed Taylor

cars passing or walkers with dogs, or both:
somebody saw & phoned, & then Air One

hovered & the black mitts of divers mined
under whitecaps of 43 degree April water

too dirty for eyes because – man down,
man in; “his arms ending at the elbows,”

he left clothes & shoes & glasses in bent grass,
in underwear dove, & swam, a pink seal

“training for a marathon event, he said” – then
crawled out & into a blanket to walk

barefoot past the bad bronze statue
fey on the hill with its too-big hands

to AmVets for 50-cent shirt & pants
& then to the studio in which he works, where police

brought his wallet & what he shed
& questions, but no one sees, not dog

walkers or cars or fake David facing away
the emergency is the racket & pressure

the dark hands & smoke & blades in air
& the only questions are if earth ends

at water, or light ends in sky & where does
the body stop, & how far is your reach

& he just answered them all

Contributor’s Note: ED TAYLOR is the author of “Idiogest” and “The Rubiyat of Hazmat” (Blazevox Books), and was a 2011 Pushcart Prize nominee.