A journal of narrative writing.
The Wide Lake of Our Knowing

Bobbin-weave through blue and knit this picture.
Square it small and tufty on the back. Fill it
incomplete, our portion of lake at the bottom

of the yard, the waves struggling like breaths.
We thought it was the future until she dropped
her mother in. The water closed over her head

like a prayer. We thought it was the reason 
we were building the boat, why we quarreled
in the canoe. At sunset, glowing like a slab

of steel. There were never chickens back there
or monsters, just things seen in a funny light—
overhead, hazard, mooring. Then she slipped

in, too. (All the fuss was in the yard.) That wash
of mercury. Was it silence itself with its withholding
vegetable green? The waves flapped like laundry

on the line. Child’s play to reflect or drown, go dark
or glint like a steel plate on which nothing can rest.

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