saline

"green peppers and pickles can be remarkably satisfying,"
he thinks, sitting there in the screened-in porch,
the waves crashing onto the beach. he's wearing
only a towel, wrapped loosely around his waist.
sexy young and unkempt, he's discarded his
wet swimsuit, his legs
are spread, and he's enjoying the feel
of the sea breeze on his balls.
he's picking up slices of green pepper and
little green cucumber pickles from
a plate that's sitting in the middle
of the table.  he's chewing the pepper slices
and the little cucumber pickles
slowly and methodically, and swallowing
them with great enthusiasm.  some people
eat fish and shrimp and oysters and
scallops and things of this nature
while at the beach, but not him. never.
bits of vegetation is what he craves.
bits of vegetation is what he wants.
so he sits there, his legs spread,
the towel loosely draped, the
sea breeze on his balls, a mouthful
of sliced green peppers -- and
the fish that frolic in the waves,
the crabs that pick at bits of
mysterious debris, the oysters and
scallops filtering the water for  
mightily nutritious bits of floating
algae, are safe from him.
he yawns and stretches
and when the towel parts
to reveal his smooth pink
genitalia in a totally calm
and relaxed state of non-arousal,
his lips smack just a bit,
and the sea breeze feels
so wonderful, a whole
well-spring of emotion
best described as "elevation"
forms in his chest, and
he just goes on chewing,
crunch crunch crunch.

–Carl Miller Daniels (This poem – "saline" – is the title poem from my book Saline; the book was published by Interior Noise Press in 2014. And the poem "saline" first appeared in My Favorite Bullet, Vol. 9, Issue 1, July 2009.)