WATER ELEGY

I couldn’t find you in our island,
so I dove. Beneath the stones I
saw your face, between the mud
your arms reached wide. I kissed
the twigs, held the fish, I stroked
the splinters in shipwreck wood.
Inside this river, you can never be
gone. Under the surface, your skin
is green and your eyes the juniper
growing slowly in our old garden
spot. The air eludes me, I borrow
time, maybe I’ll forget to breathe.
Yet hours pass, and I swim deeper,
as if the darkness shows you more,
each second past. I gulp in the tide,
swallow the stream. But here at last,
in this current, I will meet you. Your
roots now grow forever in my lungs.