this is a story-poem i wrote many years ago-- i believe in 2007; it is based on a super-vivid dream i experienced.
^ ^ ^ ascendance, transportation : : :
^ ^ ^ ascendance, transportation : : :
~ ~ ~
all breaths, i could hear none, but we were never tired, we always pushed, always ran, we ran across a pool deck (indoor) and you were (then) ahead, rigging a boat, turning objects (mostly cloth materials) inside out, and i wore black rain boots and waited (now, then) against the concrete wall, lightly.
the swimmers with their swim-capped heads stopped swimming their laps, and the coach stood next to me, nonchalant, gossipy, talked about your body, how lean it was, how you worked to be in good shape so that you could search and dive — she and no one ever spoke suspiciously of what you were doing, though you were eccentric, evidently quite different, adventuresome in an other-worldly fashion.
. . . admittedly, no one quite understood why you did what you did, but no one disbelieved your knowledge, your systems of non-convention, your magic, and i had never met you before, so i watched you create this boat, and to myself i thought, “this boat is made of cloth, of tarp. i will surely get wet, and whatever will we find beneath chlorine waves, and why you, who?”
. . . as though invested in my inner monologue, the swim coach said,
“loch ness. he searches and dives. loch ness.”
i didn’t care if i got wet.
~ ~ ~
by a rope, you led the boat to depths, and i did not get wet — i rested, i waited, fully. when anchored, you climbed into the boat, you were not wet, we rested side by side, our bodies liquid like the surface on which we were buoyed, and you spoke of your death, you knew you were nearly over, and i watched your face become a face i had not seen before, a flat face, a melted face, your eyes flat, the bones beneath your eyes
like disks, like bones, like shells, like bones, like hollow bones.
your face (now, then) also was tattooed; you were of a tribe, a tribe and time and place that was not of here, of now. you were dying, but you were alive, and i trusted you, and somehow i believed that we were together so that i could memorize you, preserve you.
i had never met you before, and we were bodiless, made of liquid, and we gazed at the sky through binoculars, and when you stood to pull the boat to shore, your face was no longer melted, your body not of liquid, you were alive, i trusted you, and somehow i believed that we were together so that i could memorize you, preserve you.
~ ~ ~
. . . no one quite understood why we always pushed, always ran, but no one cautioned us either. we were credible, runners, bodiless searchers and divers, and i had never met you before, but i recognized you, your paleness, your fire.
“loch ness. he searches and dives. loch ness.”
i didn’t care if i got wet.
you were not wet.
~ ~ ~
