Salamanders

They plane the bottom
or one hooks its rear foot around a soaking stem.
Like shadowy letter openers
they hang at all angles in the water grass.

One comes up to get a drink of air.
Such restraint—he won’t escape like a tear
but, diagonal, land again
on the blank red sand.

On the surface in a green boat
two of us turn around and around,
we skirt an island of moss and silver rocks
kneeling over violet shooting stars.

In the evening a skittish vapor
rushes over their settled water world.
And some kind of bird makes a high telephone ring
in tops of tiny-needled trees.

Fires start on the shore.