What the Water Sang

Your hands the calm hands of some tribal Chief,
leathery with faint fumes of violet smoke.
Carved from the old stories of aspen trees.
Your hands, somehow so soft in their coarseness.

Your hands submerged me into the current,
My tears enflamed the vigorous pool.
You let the water cleanse me in your hands.
There in the water you taught me to sing.

There in the current’s hush you laced into
my mute volition the dreams of water—
murmurs among the rocks, the sweet pool!—
“Coalesce to the mermaid’s elegy.”

In water we bore our love together,
Your hands trembled like the kingfisher’s wings.