In the Middle of Flathead Lake

Even five miles from shore, he crouched below
the line of gunwales to take off his shorts,

she to slip out of her top, her bikini bottom
sliding over one knee, then the next, then

the two of them gazed at their nakedness,
her untanned reaches pinking in the sun

and simple sway over waves, his
own bare place a desert with its one

thirsty tree, and she moved toward him like a squall,
her wind tasting his bark, taking it

inside her, and he let all the gust and grit of her
knock across his hills, he kissed the salt

of her, the ragged strands of far-off kelp
come to him on her wind, fish-silver,

the rust of sea wrecks, and they turned over
and over, each into the other

in that tiny open hull, vinyl
slippery from sweat and their own weather, the boat

making its own tight waves, slapping one-two
one-two to either shore, until the troll

of other engines could not be ignored,
and they moved back into their clothes, bodies

upright now, arms over the edge and fingers
trailing over blue so deep those mountains

could drown in it, over blue so jammed
with trout it glittered like a cloud full of glass,

blue so deep it took mountain, took cloud and boat,
took two people trying to become

a lake, took all things under high sun
into itself, even as the cruisers

and the yachts advanced, and other voices
poured their way across the surface—

those other lovers who would not find
a thing, each piece having already been arranged,

and only these two able to know it.