~
shadow-spine, shadow-lung—there’s a dip
in the tree-line where your voice lipped the weight
of sundown. sometimes, I hope I won’t see the
bottom of the lake, so choked with reedgrass, and
lilies yet to surface. that I don’t want the clarity
of a stone skipped across, rippling descent to the
bottom. what birds sang here? whose loneliness calls
my own—when I lift the driftwood back, to
stand upright, shadow of shade above me, my skin
warming to the night