Waltzing On Water
You want to run. No time
to board up the doors
or windows. Head inland.
There is no inland. No
horizon. No south or north.
Just this rain-whipped sky, a dissonance
of wind—each gust a different pitch
like when wolves bay—and waves.
Big as yesterday. No-escape waves.
Waves that wallop you into another
universe, certain you’ll never find
your way home. But you are home.
Same leaky faucet. leafless birch
still standing by the porch. Only
the house is a moonscape. You float
through the rooms, the hours. Wonder
how to navigate the sudden glut
of space, a hollowness like the inside
of your heart. Stoke the fire.
Sweep the floor. Try Bill Evans,
a Schumann quintet, Aretha singing “Amazing
Grace,” her voice a shimmer of salvation
from the wind chill that pierces marrow.
Whoosh. Remember waves, good times
waves, all alone waves. Always in threes.
You spin and spin, waltzing on water. And
wait, unmoored, for the tide to go in.
©Lucy Aron, Red Wheelbarrow, 2005
