postcards from a nude beach- wish you were here

the people here are very nice.

sunblazing skin bronze beneath the black hands
of my towel neighbor, a French Caribbean
massaging oil in with gold-ringed island fingers
(the oiled muscles of his groin I won't soon forget)
I exchange glances like sips of gulf air with
this strange family
as evaporated salt winks between my open legs
(the men appreciate
my utter nakedness especially;
the women
laugh
or read magazines)

the gulf gulps me down
in frothing mouth abandon
sucking new lighted liquid suns from
every pore
and I prance down the lip of shore,
a patchwork of beach umbrella tourist
beneath pastel Miami coquina
laughing with all our gaily glee
as father and child wander past, bare-assed
specimens of sprawling blush-bellied creatures...

most never learned
my mother’s sharp tongue,
the tight lipped spewed sarong words I had forgotten
with that first splash
stripping my shore of its jetty,
rough maritime relic just as curious as the
CAUTION
sign that heralded this fresh-eyed
modern paradise.