You compel me to

Rote (untitled)

You'd spent summer, light cupping

floorboards dust hairs grass breast, flight

indicates, you say, as if nodding, swimming.

Swimming.

As when you weren't in water and came

and I had my mind on you till I saw your mirror. 

Was drainage, was skiing backwards

backwater, the day before you hair 

dried and the dry lake grows near

Wilcox, near a task laid forth in seeds,

then mud, more mud than seeds. Sort 

of like sorting horses from saddles, 

if we deem it, 

if we like or look like cairns. 

Eh?

Eh he said and she

dreamed eh. It was

like that between them.

Not that his lips dreamed,

not that his dreamed lips 

parted. Eh he'd say

and her dream was eh,

was all eh, all and 

only. Sometimes

a near kiss an almost tide

drawn back withdrawn withdrawing.

Sometimes the hackled wave

raised, drew back its lip, sheered

its teeth, coughed its raw 

guttural. Or

she herself voicing

involuntary eh

his whatever, his 

what-it-is. But 

sometimes his naked eh

with her ah alongside - 

the rocked hulls nudging nuzzling

or was it scraping what

did she care? Would his eh

oh? How fast she'd 

founder, taking on water,

mouth emptying full.

By day she'd hear the air

his syllable, turn 

toward or away, does it

matter? If she said ah

would he dream ah? Oh -

not like that between them. 

--Nathalie Anderson