the fine hair on your belly

On the beaches in the summer the fine hair rose up from under the material of your bikini and swirled around your deep navel, almost invisible to the naked eye, but not to the mind, which imagines everything funneling down into the center of your being, into the middle of your wet soul, lying in darkness underneath that covering like a living, breathing animal.

Pulling on our minds like a whirlpool in the middle of the sea that Ulysses sailed, strapped the mast, alone, or with rowers chained to their rowing seats, waiting to drown with him, waiting to go down to the good light of their soul, into the unknown that lies waiting for us all.

With a swirling around their ears that sounds for all the world like the world's sweetest singing. Like unknown and mysterious birds sitting dissolute inside the caged sides of heaven. Loaded with sweet icing from the cakes of the world, cinnamon, spices from every exotic country still unknown to man.

And your fine hair affected the color of the sky too. Affected all reason. Affects the memory of you, still.