on the mossy bank, beaded
dragonflies darting gold,
man-boy and woman-girl finding the songs of the body
for the first time. Even now,
every time we love
we return to that moment,
our house of origin,
the day we picked blueberries until our hands were stained,
backs ached with bent.
In the heat of noon
we found a lake,
dove in and entered
our own green myth, the whole of the undressed sky above.
This is where our skin
silted, gleamed beneath
the surface, the sudden
perfection of ear
and toe enough. The waterworn stone, sun on bare-tangled
limbs. This is why
we breathe and suffer,
so we can crack
the body open, enter
and be entered--the way the wind does leaves, or wailing
the lungs. In the aftersleep,
we drifted. Days and nights
passed unnoticed--
the hoof of the world
coming down between those fused forms--until we forgot
the underwater
where we came from
that day. Even now,
this is the story
that builds us, and all others just possibilities, brachiated,
our lives grown also
from what is unsaid,
unwalked. Even now, this is
the bedrock, the place
where we stoop over the mirrored pool, scooping sweet
water to our lips.