In Which You Leave It Behind

You know you'll be letting some of it ride
as soon as you put one foot in the water.
And two strokes take you out of its reach,
the ring of pine needles left along the shore,
the house and barn giving off their distant
protestations, waving you back as though this
they have yet to deliberate, and at last
the rest of the hemisphere, the half that
you're able to care about somewhat better
in an idle way, floating close to the surface
and given over to buoyancy.

How easy it would be to overlook
the pine trees as they appear in reflection,
strikingly black and green but lost all the same
if you focus instead on the water's null
of distinctions. The giving back is done
for them, taken in, taken care of, just as
it is for the dragonflies who bear no weight
and nevertheless rely on the surface.
It seems that you leave yourself willingly,
except that you must. Not the water that does
your forgetting, no, but all else buoying the water up.

Copyright © 2004 Audrey Bohanan All rights reserved
from Lime
Silverfish Review Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission