Gainesville, Fla - John Vanderslice

I was born in a summer storm

Grass was cold but the sky was warm

They lay me down in the mossy fields

Where the crows kill with tender speed

Sun burned off the lonely clouds

And warmed my face, the roots in the ground

They washed me off in a shallow stream

Where sand dunes line the beach

I grew up on that moody land

I understood the tension all around

Between me and you and dad

How a sunburn goes cold and damp

And how we hovered all in between

Slight sliver where life can begin

Between oxygen and temperature

Or the force fields of boy and girl

I was born in a summer storm

Grass was cold but the sky was warm

And so I hover now in between

The slight sliver where life can breathe

Submariners crashed my sleep

I heard about it on the BBC

I can hear as they tap on the steel

Of a hull downed in the melting sea