a chicago stereo sun raga
		--------------------------------------------------

		in july at sunset
		the sun sets in stereo
		on the bryn mawr-ardmore pier
		in chicago

		the sun laps
		the sun flickers
		grayblue silver water
		golden needles dance just like on the ganges
		coming at me directly -- twelve o'clock

		glancing off one lucky hi-rise
		on the northwest corner of sheridan and bryn mawr
		coming at me portside -- ten o'clock

		i tell you of this, second
		first, i told the young blonde
		watching over the shadowed beach
		from the bryn mawr-ardmore pier
		(watching over the kids squealing in water)

		much later in darkness
		the newly hatched gnats
		accosted us making exit conversation viable
		(everything is alive, everything has a place)
		wow she says.  like wow.  you see things like that
		in the movies.

		she is wearing a solid orange top and solid white pants
		the livery of beachside authority
		sacred colors

		she is more sri
		she is more swami
		than she knows
		(she is lanky and she probably swims fast)

		she is lightning princesses and cloud maidens
		she flickers with the universal mother, jaganmaata
		she laps with the lull of the goddess of wealth, lakshmi

		if you let me sing to you of her 8 virtues
		it won't be a lullaby
		it won't be a manifesto

		brace yourself brace yourself bracelet yourself
		here it comes

		what with her suntanned freckled blonde hair put up
		what with her black plastic radio
		what with her orange buoy toted like an israeli gun

		she is carnatic sangeet

		she is and she is not:
		man's plaything
		pornography
		venus
		25k years ago
		carved in stone

		she is not an artifice in any language
		she is not fat


			Marek Lugowski
			23 July 2002
			Chicago, Illinois