Sunday Poem

DUNK TANK 

The marine glory of gotcha, and gotcha back. Chloronic
holding pen of those we schmucked. Hocking a lugie kicked
up a notch—systemic—made ungainly, the mass

of a full-sized four-door beater. Gallons and gallons of the colder
the better suspended between clear perspex, the safest
glass-like plastic on the planet, its hind square painted

radiant college-slut blue. The seat—like a fin, a skateboard
deck made hinged, spindly—cupping the bum of a gym
teacher in a swim suit. Not the coquette, the run and hide, the hermit—

thrush in the pool’s mouth kisses his feet.
A game of social studies, three balls for a dollar, three
chances to overturn the static, the goading, drop a bully 

like a bully drops a bran muffin, chances that depend
on how eager the arm is to catch the light, how rigged it is.
Equitable estoppels, a ratio of vex to velocity, you’ve made your bed, 

now swim in it cut with it’s all for a good cause.
And after, they’ll empty, collapse; it’s rented,
so whatever was in us that's gleeful, a truck hauls off at four.

 From The Hard Return (Insomniac, 2012) by Marcus McCann