If we stand together beside the lake
on a spring afternoon, the breeze
will hold out its many cool hands
to greet us. And if we lie
down, there, in the evening, our bodies
sheltered together in an open
shell of sand, the many skins
of the breeze will leave
our heat behind, seeking
to beguile
the lake with its return. This assurance, this fumble,
toward perfect
balance – barometric, if our pressing
into one another could be
measured. In each others’ arms, we
arrive – complete
inertia, complete rest. The deepest
twilight over the lake, purple –
as litmus, or purely as the blood
of lichen torn
from stone – brightens, fades, red, blue, depending,
dipping its edge into the water. Once
|
this lake flowed from itself into a river into a stream into a cistern into a curving faucet turned open by my hands, still and cupped to receive it, though my feet tapped out a 3/4 time, solo saraband, and I noted the absent fourth beat, the fourth season, which opens leaves, petals, stalks – all the declensions of Kairo. Now |
just as we
|
cannot entice the badger into tasting hyacinth and mallow, along the lake’s shore, nor coax her in to burrowing for shelter above ground, you cannot keep me |
|
from bending toward you like tall flowers in the lake’s breeze, keep me from twisting our tangled roots around my determined tongue, nor persuade me to carve a hole, the shape of my body into anyone but you. Dancing |
the slow saraband at lake’s edge in twilight, breeze gone
to caress the water’s skin, you are
the fourth beat, once
missing.
