From the "Union Pier" poems:

On this hot day a beach poem may refresh you --

Beach Day

A calm Lake Michigan

laps up its sweet waters on

the shore.  The sky clearly

blue and clean of clouds, I

surrender my body to the stunning

sun.  Stretching down on the sand I

spill down one shoulder at a time

along with each pelvic bone, first

the left side, then

the right.  I mold a hollow where

my back finds its place,

carefully,

vigilant of sharp

pebbles, seashells, chunks of

green or brown glass, cigarette butts.  I

breathe deeply two

or three times to

unknot each nerve, loosen

tendons and muscles. Though shut,

my eyes know the sun’s

rays, their glow too robust for

my sheer eyelids, their heat penetrating

crevices and pores like

the slender threads of the surgeon, able

to patch together fragile membranes

with three or four swift stitches.  All

peacefully warm now, the loud

squawks of the gulls above

startle me out of my slumber.  I open

my eyes to see them delineating circles

and zigzags against the liquid sky,

screeching,

diving,

catching a fish.  

Time to sit up and eat!

With one hand, I hold a ham and cheese

on whole wheat, with the other, shoo away

invisible flies.   Not a bother really, perhaps

a small nuisance.  What are minute insects

compared to this luxury, to these dazzling dreams I

inhabit daily, awake and certain. 

Hours later, the rain storm comes.    Bright

threads of lightning

illuminate the darkening sky and

the downpour surprises me on

my way back home.  Furious

and sudden, the rain falls

on the hot asphalt,

raising steam, the woods becoming

the foggy background of a horror movie.  This cooling 

rain, welcomed and short, as

it should always be.