I have a dear friend who's a photographer.
And, one summer, she had an underwater photography project.
And she's very scared of going underwater.
So this is for her.
The camera she uses as a waterproof Nikon camera
called "The Nikonus," which, of course, is a take off
of Greek island of Mykonos.
I'm giving the poem away here.
"Nikonus."
"Mid bay, the camera, a pun on the bright island
of my childhood sinks.
Its waterproof housing guided by hand not I
to the burly and the slight blonde figures casting
through the wide-brimmed net of light against the bobbing boat.
The frightened photographer is brave.
Shut tight her eyes, relinquish to the skin their grasp.
They surface all three.
Explosions of lung made light and drop
again to fly, arms wide, two dancers and a feeling
into the dolphin liquid dark that
holds them as a bird in sky.
More, more than we believe gives light--
the hair, the beard, the nimbus on the glance, the sheath
around the plummeting, the seaweed and small fish
are stars against the lapis night.
Stretched out across the screen, the slides force us like ocean
to hold breath on land.
We hold the slight-built German and the large blond man
who rowed the boat, the artist and her girl, and I,
illumined by the tangible dream of the flesh made kite."