Like this:

My form transfigured:

Feet, befinned,

Eyes, begoggled,

I am a blue-footed human boobie

Waddling to my take off perch

Poised between terror and wonder….

Fins first, I plummet

Splashing into the crystalline deep

Its primal chill

Propels me upward like a fleshy cork

Bobbing at the surface seeking my leader.

“Over here!” he shouts.

With a frog kick and a snorkel breath

I jettison toward a coral centerpiece

Blossoming below me in alizarin splendor,

Festooned by violet undulating sea fans–

An underwater luxury condominium,

Where neon tetras dart their zigzag patterns

And cerulean parrot fish nibble greedily

At algae-encrusted coral fingers.

A shy nurse shark peers out

From within her coral cave;

A mottled puffer fish confronts me, eyeball to eyeball

As if to demand, “Your ticket please,”

And a squadron of sergeant majors files by,

Commanding a salute

To these delicate denizens of this fragile diorama.

All too soon I am once again finless and myopic;

All too soon I am rendered human

But forever transformed

By such ephemeral beauty off Grand Turk.

 

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