There’s something false to this—
it’s all surface, a shard of sky,
and below that, one imagines
a wild unconscious slime.
Lovers come at twilight, in neutrality,
couples who hang their heads
as if forced into arrangements
with their own reflections.
Birds shift down, dipping,
but only their shadows are cleansed.
They are hunting bluebottles
and other transparencies;
love could not inspire
such endless activity.
I stand on the bank, its ragged
moss like a velveteen collar
torn at the shoulder.
Looking across, I see the other half,
the other so much like this place
and my place in it.
The scalloped algae parts
and there we are, mirrored
like James’ witches
standing shameless and possessed
at either end, the moonlight’s
slack bed sheet beneath us.