Untitled; MPW, 2020 (watercolor)
Apparition
Still you come to me sister
two or three times a week
in this blue water
as lifting my head I catch
the phantom blur of you
at the edge of the pool,
your body pitched forward,
waiting for the exact moment
I pass, alone as I am now
in this solitude,
my dull repetitive turning, arms mowing,
face down, face up, braced
for the briefest flick of something
like your fingertips
to graze my calf, right or left,
it doesn’t matter if you make for me
pleasure or pain, the imagined
feel of your nearness skirting my
numbness is enough,
wanting as I do what might be glimpsed
of you at the edge
where water meets
breath
(for Anne, 1963-2015)
