LOS ANGELES SWIMMING HOLE CLUB
We’d been hiking in Bishop
JMW lakes and scree fields,
crags like rock candy spiraling upward
through the landscape of moss green
and granite.
That was morning.
Drove north to the the façade of Mammoth
out in the wide skirt of plain, Minarets
towering affront.
Took a wrong turn past the little airport
cruising the Jetta over dust white trails
skinny, rolling paths, kicking up the smell of sagebrush,
a duststorm following us down to the campsite
on a moonscape of sulfuric, volcanic, ancient activity.
And the spring,
built out with stone and cement
by “hippies” in the seventies.
PVC sticking out of the earth
feeding 110 degree mineral water
into the deep tub
and the Los Angeles Swimming Hole Club
Hipsters, but the primordial type
Dancing, soaking,
their story
eaten by VW commercials
us and them both bought into,
but loving everything going on.
Them, us, the sky, music from a tailgate
the girl who changed openly,
the hot water pumping through the Sierras.
They left, we bathed and loved it
even if TV clichés were rife.
We grilled and explored the moon.