at the longest pond in the world

The water is glittering and black. I dive through it, and this year I am twenty-two, and this year
I am still the youngest.

His back is a white fish, twenty-six this year, slim and firm, and he pushes me through it slick
glittering, blackness. He calls it milky, which I understand.

A mile out, maybe two, the undulating marsh turns to the bay, and then the rain
comes in a rush. But there is no rain
only scores of blackbirds, and they are so brief and fast and fly in such tight and weaving formations
that in a second they are gone, leaving
imprints like speckles on my sight. They could be bats.

Lately, I notice when the sky is solid blue or solid white
from the fog that rolls in, afternoons to envelop our umbrellas
that small cells, ameboid and translucent, crawl across my vision.

My mother says these are called floaters
and that I need to make an appointment with the optometrist in the city.

When we get home, the moon is a silver sliver and my father’s eyes
are hazel behind the blood sunset. He’s putting too much jalapeño in the gazpacho,
and oh well.

Today when we took a long walk, signs
of piping plovers all around us,
he fell asleep in the sand after he said It’s so peaceful here
and thus I could think of nothing but his death, and I hoped he would say the same then.