adult swim

give me the water. i want to turn
loaves into fishes. release them back
into a chlorine place where
gills become shovels. that summer
i let my skin wrinkle. bare feet on concrete.
the sun like a bowl of oranges.
our town was big enough to consume me.
now that i am older i seek out larger monsters
to devour me bone by bone but then
it was just the overpass & the red truck.
the old factory by the train station
without any windows. crawling inside
to collect coke bottles from the 80s.
we read their labels like prophecies.
during adult swim, i sometimes joined.
made my face stoic. swam alone as if 
i was an adult too. no one ever
said anything to me. i was maybe thirteen. 
my freckles bloomed. the wild onion roots i dug
from beneath the biggest oak tree.
i mimicked what i saw the other adults do.
back & forth. some walked. others swam laps.
my flesh, bright beneath the water.
i never wore goggles. instead, i opened 
my eyes underwater & found smudged 
sea monsters. all our toes. the stone bottom.
in the shallow end i could stand. water
up to my neck. life is full of all kinds
of little guillotines. when the adult swim was over
everyone else would leave & i would say.
a conduit. the children jumping
into the blue. the speakers playing 
the local radio station: some red-hot chili peppers song.
i laid on my back. saw my bones
in the clouds. a great soup. some days
i stayed until the place closed.