The lake laps the lips of the shore where I sit
away from baby who’s with my mother up the hill
and I hear in this place the changes in my name
from lover to mother
like something gobbled into something else.
I hear fish mouths muddling mossy mud,
flopping frogs, the sound of the sky pulling me
towards itself and away from my bulbous
body, the tap-tapping of the cool July mountain
wind against the green canoe, daytrip picnic
voices chattering, swish swish of fisherman’s lines,
tackleboxes muted clang. I hear the shrieks of my baby
muffled by sweeping gasps of shivering leaves,
the distance not enough to stop the wetness
of my milk from leaking warm through my shirt.
My baby. This human thing that latches on me
not unlike a fish latched onto a hook
but louder, softer, sweeter,
more pink and fuzzed and loved by the widening
of the space in my chest where I feel my heart beat.
Among the bowing pines bobbing into the damp
I hear the water whisper to the soul of myself
that even when the languid liquid of the stream flinches
its way into the fullness of the lake becoming something
else entirely, it still remains water.
Such a beautiful and unexpected pairing of ideas in this piece—a fish and a baby. And then there are rich word pairings within, like “fuzzed and loved” and “languid liquid.” I love the message that even as we “[become] something / else entirely” we are still, in very essence, ourselves. Thank you, Kate, for that reminder!
Great line breaks!
“I hear the water whisper to the soul of myself…” and the simple sentence: “My baby.” Thank you for sharing this. It’s beautiful.