Belle Isle, 1949 by Philip Levine

Belle Isle, 1949

We stripped in the first warm spring night 

and ran down into the Detroit River 

to baptize ourselves in the brine 

of car parts, dead fish, stolen bicycles, 

melted snow. I remember going under 

hand in hand with a Polish highschool girl 

I’d never seen before, and the cries 

our breath made caught at the same time 

on the cold, and rising through the layers 

of darkness into the final moonless atmosphere 

that was this world, the girl breaking 

the surface after me and swimming out 

on the starless waters towards the lights 

of Jefferson Ave. and the stacks 

of the old stove factory unwinking. 

Turning at last to see no island at all 

but a perfect calm dark as far 

as there was sight, and then a light 

and another riding low out ahead 

to bring us home, ore boats maybe, or smokers 

walking alone. Back panting 

to the gray coarse beach we didn’t dare 

fall on, the damp piles of clothes, 

and dressing side by side in silence 

to go back where we came from.