Like Water
- When they are seventeen he takes her to a place
- where the Shield surrounds, and Kelly’s Creek
- pinches to a rivulet, tadpoles flashing through
- sunken moss, sunshine winking on puddles like
- an eyelid when the light is too brilliant to face.
- They lie together in the shallows, these childhood friends,
- unschooled in passion, drawn in by the shimmer of tiny
- minnows and the ripe scent of slow slippery pools. Sweet
- easy kisses, hesitant touchings, then a melting so warm,
- so new, their laughter wells up in astonishment.
- A fifty year old memory, rising from beneath a
- guarded heart, unseemly in its longing, as vibrant
- as if yesterday—me so young and careless
- shaking love out of my hair like water.
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