water

i would wish you luck if i could.

if desire were not in the picture,

in  the wind.  if talk were cheap.

if the pools of water  reflected

 nothing. thick veil it is that

 pulls the rain over the

 city, this one that you once

dreamed of,  this one in which

i almost drowned. so thanks be there 

to some unbroken goddess that

 we still got our day of sunshine, the

silver respite of the road,  our chariot

of galloping ponies fit neither for  tropics

nor  northern woodlands.  as we lay

in the clearing i thought for a moment

we might find some  berries, share

the  red juice dribble over drying leaves,

a return amid the thick  amber

dust,   taking perhaps the longest

path homeward.  now it is

this water that sends me out

again into the thickness,  hands

and breath moving counter to despair

seeking short  or connected acts of

survival, and there is no lifeboat you can

take to reach me,  here on the brink of

this sea that is our mother, her daughters

  rising higher than the tide