Water (the dilemma of distance)

You look at me like water.

On some days,

Dipping your toes

Is enough.

When it’s hot,

You dive in

And I,

Overflowing into the world,

Soak everything in my wake.

In sweat

No one complains.

I spill out

        Amphoric

Where my shapelessness caresses 

My multiplicity pierces. 

I break but my limbs run home

And dissolve back into me.

Perplexed, you envy such stability in core. 

        I am many and one

            Vertiginous

                 Exhausting

A solitary swimmer,

You want it all to yourself,

Savoring the softness of embrace.

        Quarantine refreshing taste

You do not share.

Lone frog,

You are greedy.

So tomorrow you plan to stay dry,

Preserve the pond’s dewy contents

         Conserve the rare

         Tyrannize passion

         Marvel remotely

                     Divorced 

Heat tests your self control.

     Standing on the edge

          Looking down

a self-loathing toad looks back.

An untouched liquid mirror,

Impregnated with your stolen reflection.

          Poisonous serenity 

And you’re painted a coffin. 

          Total stillness

                    Silence

The muted trap asks,

‘Who are you, young tadpole?

What makes your brow furrow?

Why do you look so aged?

          You are young!

The shiny surface even catches your eye bags.

          Tired eyes

          Weary soul 

          The stench of fresh inner death’

Silence is so unnatural.

Life dances—Da capo!

A ripple pulses through and

The mirror shatters as your 

reflection disperses.

The swaying surface erupts

As if screeching with laughter

          ‘Remember me?’

Mirrors are unnatural.

Water exhales vitality.

         Waves toss 

         Lost rhythm found

         Ripples rebound

But intermittent slumbers can live for lifetimes,

Taunting your self diagnosed incapacities,

Forever bound to gaze out

         Not in. 

Eternally enigmatic identity,

Who are you?

From whence came this wretched ‘i’?

The shock of obscurants 

         Violent bubbling noise

Draws a tear from a glass eye.

         Magnetic

         Lovers reunited in war time

Enjoyable suffering pulls the plug in a tub. 

                                     Dr

                                         ain

                                               ed

Thirst drives you back to my arms.

          The ocean—

I am water! 

Submerged in my depths

You feel alive.

What bounds have been left unknown!

Vivacious cartographer,

Please show me what I myself 

Have not yet discovered. 

You find purpose in uncharted domains,

I find purpose in your whimsical strokes.

You move me.

The tired are carried to the shore 

By the sunset. 

My nighttime coolness is uninhabitable.

          A black pond

No inner distinctions detectable

          Eyes made blind

You shudder

          Terrifying mystery

In her black obscurity

Forces eyes to remain wide.

          Alert

Perfect conditions for the sleepless

And the dead.

Riddled amphibian,

Colored sunset dusk,

You ask,

“How can something so beautiful from within be from without startlingly painful?”

            The dilemma of distance. 

[04/30/18]