For Drowning

Dreams. I recommend them.  

The easy way to go. Tipped siren,

sip of Benadryl.

There are days I want nothing more than to

step onto the seabed. There, I lived

in the hollow of your throat.

Do you remember? (It was only

a day; it's okay if you forget. Really.) Then nothing,

just the creekbed,

crawdaddy graves, Poprock husks.

Last week, I went to my sleeping baby

and reached for her. An empty crib. I knew

that they had taken her to Mexico, and I

would have to kill myself (gas)

or move to Paris. But I was still dreaming.

She was actually in my bed, had never been

in the crib. I sang and sang to her.

Louder. Still she slept.

A mistake, but I kept dreaming anyway.

In the dream: a strand of seaglass and you. I

was there too. It seemed like a punchline,

the slippery side of a gesture, end

of a joke: us, there, on the seabed,

too deep for the sun to reach.

Are we shells? you said. 

I tried to answer, open my little shell mouth,

but nothing. Only bubbles.

A river is a river is a river. Yes?

My student wants to write a story

about a man who thinks he is in love

with a woman but is really

just in love with the air around her.

My student is still young enough

to believe these are different.

And so I write on the board:

pools are pools,

oceans, oceans.