Trust

Saturday night in the projects
The tub filled with brown water
Incinerators belched black smoke
On gray buildings, gray pigeons, the gray river

The housing authority would not allow us
To bathe in tainted water, I believed
In 1955, kids still swam in the East River
Dodging buoyant, brown, bulbous balls

Of unmentionable composition
Toilet paper, small children’s toys, very small children
Missing toothbrushes and other flushed things
Old timers fished for eels

Strained to remember days when fish hit their lines
Now seagulls swooped for bobbing morsels
Flushed pieces of lives shot from portals
Along the path in the park

That stretched along the river
I stayed away at low tide
When the aroma was emphatic
And sunsets bathed the park in beige

They would not poison
Then allow us to use and drink
Tainted water, I believed
I mattered more than that

•  •  •  •  •

Sestina de Agua

Violet, translucent, infinite silk veil
Streaked with stretching, shrinking bands
Magenta, chartreuse, teal and pale orange
Backdrop for oceans of air we call sky
Wet hem drinking mercurial liquid
Reeled in and out with moon rays and mystery

Rolling mood ring of mystery
Hole to forever disguised by the veil
In torrents of liquid
Oil slick purple and silver bands
Mirrored in sky
Tied in loose bows of orange

Gulls glide in jagged horizons of orange
Dissolve into mystery
Of a darkening sky
A chasm of space calls beneath the veil
In bold, gentle, even, then erratic bands
That break to free bastions of oceanic liquid

Beneath the feet that once stood on ground there is liquid
That boils and blisters until the world is coated in red that fades to orange
The earth is stretched then cinched in by rainbows of bands
That cloak the senses and leave unexplained things to mystery
That reveals pieces of what was familiar beneath the veil
That reaches wide to enfold the sky

Tumultuous, tepid, tawdry, tempestuous, torrid sky
Waving, languid, luxurious, celestial language of liquid
Millions of shells cast on sand like bones then slipped out to sea beneath the veil
Their meaning savored for a splash in eternity the color of orange
All that was known reduced to foam and returning waves of mystery
Answers left to ocean sounds and notes played by celestial and oceanic bands

Celestial and oceanic bands
We can embrace but not hold ocean or sky
Some things must be left to mystery
In leagues of thick, sultry liquid
Absent hints of yellow or orange
Swathed in velvet theater curtains that form the heavy veil

Seething, seductive, suffocating veil
Last thought, a splash, a gasp, a dream of misty mists of orange
Eternal black and blueness, we are nearly all liquid

•  •  •  •  •
 
The Lake in Morning

In the mist of neither night nor day
Before the first yawning of the sun
The water spiders scrawl messages
On lily pads then slide them on liquid glass
To be read by those who’ve left
Their arrogance on shore

The water will enfold you, embrace you
Like the scent of a lover from long ago
Inhale the multicolored mist
Release the beating of your pulse
To thump with syncopated rhythms
Of crosscurrents, undertows
Dive into the exquisite moment
When the tide is neither out nor in

Feel the boundary of your skin dissolve
And know we are made mostly of water
Feel the boundary of your skin dissolve
And remember that we all live downstream
From one another

•  •  •  •  •

Rainwater

Wherever water and wind reside
Waves die on shore then resurrect
In stronger forms to meet the same demise
The lake, a liquid mirror, growing restless
Gathers things once forgotten
And casts them upon itself
These thoughts roll over me on the shore
Of a waveless lake while one raincloud
Floats in the wrong direction
Distracted by memories that shimmer and resemble
Trees, buildings and the crane that watched me
I try to remember that the secret is in
The dip between ripples, and the placid bands
That separate concentric, expanding rings of wonder
Then one drop, and then another
I feel the water touch my lips
Slide down my throat
Revive my lungs
Unwrinkle leathered skin
After days of spitless swallowing
Like monsoons after deathly dry seasons
Water brings to life cells of earth and tissue
Planetary plasma from the universal donor
Breathing things and things appearing not to breathe
Burst forth in wet ebullience
We are but minute suspensions
In this cosmic flask of water