Water Song

You’re so much smoother than me
with your drinks that have names.

You look like all those lakes

I’ve seen from planes,
lying there, light dripping down your middle,

all waves, no sharp edges.


You should pour me something. Something clear
so that when I hold up my glass I can still see you,
fish-eyed and small like a kid.
You’d look good blurry.

I could get up the nerve

to kiss you under water,

clothes swelling with bubbles,
our dresses floating around us like jellyfish—


we could be sea children, blue-blooded.
We’d be like ship wrecks,
so out of focus down there they’d never find us.
Hair like Medusa snakes, only finer.
Anemone hands.

We don’t need all this air
when we can just float, running our fingers
down the bellies of boats and harvesting sea-weed.


In the water it’s quiet,
so quiet we can hear the ocean moving,
or breathing, if it breathes. And if you’d just hold still
and
 cup your ear like a shell,
you could hear it: the sound of blue,
the sound of sleep.

— 2009