Two Poems

Clarity

Ten meters up
the diver's half-
naked
         body falls
like a brick slipped
from a mason's hand

down the scaffolding
on the side of a house

and the piss-stream
water from the tower's
base breaks up
                     the clarity
of the water's skin
              like it's the film
of all reality

But without the rippling
we would not be able
to tell the difference
between truth    and truth

and our bodies ripping
into its veil shows

the beauty
              of knowing
we're not as close
to hitting bottom
as we may think

 

Pull and Arc

At the MacArthur Street supermarket I run
into you again,
                    checking out
in aisle three, reflection of fluorescent light off your
flat-pressed brown hair. That soft orange shawl drapes over
your bare shoulders,
                            eyes drawn to your hands
fidgeting for something in your purse. I'm overcome

by the buoyancy of memory:

all the purple afternoons at Crane Lake,
your fingers dipped in the water, elbow bent
over the canoe, and I facing you, slicing
paddle into water—
                            pull and arc, pull and arc,

each heave of my body toward yours, each push
back to the other side.
                               Your hair draped on
the water by surface tension,
                                        then, head up, your eyes
on me, voice humming out a three-note melody,
the density of your fingers dragging
through the water's top,
                                 the vanishing point
of the wake cutting a reflection distorted endlessly.