as each rushing letter washes
past my eyes, I suspend my mind to see beyond
the words they sign and swim to
the deeper meaning of their
message. the poem speaks to me, her
voice underwater, in a way
that only I can hear and I look around
the room to be aware
of this, watching others with
their books, and plants, their chairs.
her fingertips press out to thread
connections to my forehead,
trace around my eyebrows,
then glaze thin lines down the hollows of my cheeks.
why do I feel this only now?
we share blue sapphires of joy,
clasping palm-sized
stones as medallions to our chests,
the ritual of our poetic
engagement, this submarine aqua-détente.
come to me, poem, your droplets rolling off my brow, tapping code to
break my Self away from drowning,
alive again.