I learned
to let my body give it was not I
who controlled the rocks
Robert Kroetsch (1927-2011)
for an instant I thought
of the difference between air and
without thinking her flipper
buoyed me out of
gender and the institution was
what I forgot
ankle turned into the fin
I always wanted to know
something other than air
float belly-centered in love
and it was not difficult this
landlessness at the pivot
of our dance what matters
what touches in what language
when the others join too
the curbs and spiral stairways
will all dissolve into swirls
of joy and breaches
and when I spun surprised
in the blue-grey to look
surprised at her eyes she
even more surprised was
there too really really
the waters were words mostly
verbs of being ecstatic and
I did not miss my groin
at all sleek we swam away
iceflows and schools of ideas
art and movement through liquid
ease she teases and swims better
than I ever dreamed
another state of being
intimate with oneself water
a wet embrace of care full
of promise loveswirl
and swerve you sped
ahead and I learning
floundered after eyes
finding new colours the shape
of your longing receding
a moment of doubt would
you leave adrift I wonder
how would I find land again but
by body knows now it will not
turn back arched
dives deeper
where currents meet and fishes
are rich we reached fins skyward
stretching the surface of the
possible beach pebbles against
skin a sound of release
the a waffling wake of
past lives land-bound slow
walkers and linear thinking
maybe you and I maybe
water riffled around our discourse
of love bubbling with the future
my sore ears disappeared overused
to the inane blathering of news
your paper fell apart paint ran
books disintegrated into soggy messes of intention
clothes dissolved into sensation
our house became the many
horizons became a progress toward
