Sunscreen

That day we went to Southport without a thought
of Time, or Love, or God, or even sunscreen —
when it was late July, and we were nineteen,
when beer and cigarettes were all we brought,
when swimming naked meant the glimpses caught
were also offered, when no desire was unclean,
when death was in the picture but never on-screen,
when all we knew was what we had been taught —
that was the last time any of us were happy.
Which means that none of us are living well —
that’s what the Greeks say, and they seem like they’d know.
We haven’t died, or anything so sappy,
but we have put ourselves and our friends — our lifeguards — through hell
by always flirting with the undertow.