Lee Colin Thomas

Synchronous whistles
at the three o’clock break.
I hoist myself poolside
and drip. Cross arms to hide
thin ribs stacked like saltines.
He descends from his tower
to the concrete. Muscles pull

the upstroke of his spine
as he stretches. Arms curve
in parentheses around the sky.
Then he swings each one in hoops
until they’re loose in their sockets.
Breath swells his chest
under clavicle serifs.
Red trunks hip-hung
on a swath of skin, pale
against a sepia abdomen.
Mirrored shades
volley light and smiles
from girls standing by.
When his lips part
his teeth dare the sun.

Cold and shrunken inside my suit
I pull threads from my towel.
Worry want might sprout
like hair under my arms.
Barely fourteen, too timid
to try-out for JV. I watch him
dive into blue. Body bending
a comma beneath the surface.
His fingers skim the secret slick
of the drain’s open mouth.