Ultraviolet in piercing places,
lips and lungs and tongues and
tummies
under light gray tide-taut moonlight,
under neon’d open windows;

sudden deep-breaths, underwater—
where I can’t swim, six fathoms deep,
there, eight-armed squid and bottom-feeders
lay their eggs and send out signals—

I sink—lead-head—to the sea floor,
towards the lava, I hit heat vents,
and I feel everything inside you,
I hear gasping—I feel hidden—

I know everything about you,
each college story, soul permission—
a geyser bubbles out from inside—
an ocean stitched from skin and marrow—

one body could not hold it in,
one of us against a sea-wall?
One boy alone would not go swimming—
but both of us could drown together.

And back in bed, above the covers
inside a cloud of skin-sweet hormones,
pink and red, we now tread water—
I touch your chest, I vow to sink.