So Much Water.
~For Cory, January 2001
What I come back to is the time we wanted
to bundle up the bike and take the ferry
to Haines, and we spent most of that ride sleeping
except when I woke up to comb your hair through
—that river of black silk that in my dreams I
find myself swimming in, like a sea otter—
but anyway we came in late and brought wine
your friends gave us the waterbed to sleep in
and later we made love with such pure hunger
that I forgot myself in you completely.
We took the bike to Canada on your whim.
I felt so safe behind your padded shoulders
my feet were freezing but the mountains took me
to somewhere where my breath remained suspended.
The memory of that day can still undo me.
And either on that day or one just like it
we claimed each other's bodies by the river
—still standing up, and later nearly falling—
next to the bear track fresh in silty bank mud.
It rained on us and we were happy in it.
It seems as if that rainy trip was golden,
was lit with some sweet fire from the inside
—the urgency the smells the body hunger
combined with water light and earth to foster
some sort of dream where time was in suspension
and every touch was every skin cell dreaming
and every raindrop blended with your fingers
to dress my body down in perfect showers
that smell like river water in my memories.
It smells like river water, in my memories.
