David Hockney, 1972

1.

All beiges, tans & teals.
Concrete & tile. Tabula

rasa of chlorine & cool,
where the bigger boys,

all blond & toned,
strode through the pool

in swooping crawls,
where my limbs twinged

tight, lungs gulped, gasped,
always hunched, scrawny,

never spontaneous, never
the splash or spring, synergy

of arm & leg, that butterfly
spin, that caught breath,

that good tired—years
of lessons as a kid & still

I can’t tread water.
Now I float on my back,

a starfish puffing
its chest, squinting

at the sun. Like that,
my mind works in the water,

thoughts dulled & spinning
to the edge of the pool,

my finger almost touching
the cool & solid wall.

2.

Now the Hockney spans
before me: canvas rippling

beyond the museum walls.
Those SoCal hills I know

so well. The water before it:
always the water. Where

light tricks itself into revealing
more than it should: the boy’s

unfounded innocence or the painter’s
unfocused gaze, flowing outside

the bounds of the swimming pool
in a greedy detail we delight in,

luster of porcelain tile shadowed
by the standing figure, an artist

looking everywhere & nowhere,
framed in the landscape, distant blues

whose mountains, eucalyptus languor
whose green & bitter scent

brings me to this second home,
holding my breath against

the crystalline acrylic.