19. At Midnight

We’d entered from a tuft of green
beneath the tree where

love’s meniscus
burst and fed me through

to feathering waters, smooth and warm
from sunlight pilfering.

Wading forward, hands out
stretched the leaning to

the slowly now of sinking
float and drift.

The stroke; the stroke unvisible
and visible after each

converged, two souls
together in one pool —

no! It was a lake
wide and dark beneath

a star-filled sky
bordered round by curls of shadowed trees

within the cradle of the moon
the midnight of a life.

Its ripples wavered out
and moonlight sparkled in their waves

as fingers shaped
the water’s bodying.

Treading, turning, searching
each, the other

dark eye radiant
reflected in their orbs

our own warm stars
in each.