By Manet> goddess77@mail.utexas.edu
Date: 13 June 1999

Inverse River

Spiders move raindrops over flat, woolly webs 
on the other side of this window.

Are you here?

The stars outside wheel through Andromeda galaxy.
So I and the other talk about how the light that left
those stars when humans first stood up is just now getting here.

Water is working the sweet field outside.
Looking for the right volume on the shelf.
The smooth fingers are a result of no fingerprints.
Even though the leather bound covers remain in your fingertips,
nothing of you remains were your finger once was.

You loved when they visited you.
You changed shape for them
and when they left- 
you were the same as water.

They didn't mind being plural.
They put the summer stars inside of you.

Our love, when we pause, lays down inside of us.
This was the power that told you it was okay to
stop making sense.

The lower case "i" that you had been taught
was suddenly not enough.
You carried it, a little flame, 
into almost famous cities.

And when they left-
you were the same as water.