Poem: Drop of Water

This poem was recently published in Chicago Literati and is one of my favorties among those I've written. In the process of editing it, a plot line developed and the poem took over and wrote itself. The "drop of water" is much more. This is one of those rare times when my subconscious found the freedom I try so hard to give it (perhaps I fail, often, because I try so hard).

Best to All,

Owl

PS: the other poems in Chicago Literati are especially powerful, too. One concerns my childhood so is extra intense for me.

READ THEM HERE

---------------


Drop of Water

it wasn’t as simple as she wanted,
ripe with transparent creatures,
each more cunning than the guile of the smallest itch.
it couldn’t be cut in half
though it could be parsed, and yet then you got
segments of competitors:
a rank glossy sphere of doom,
tragedy all over again.
it wasn’t like a pinch of sun
or a cc of dopamine.
it was a seed, all right, but cursed,
could eke out life in dunes
or a poisoned quagmire.
she wanted to drop it in the well
of her watery eyes, offer up
its furtive cyphers at
the altar of needy thoughts.
she was eager to, as a priest might fling
some terrible clue off a bridge.
she was underneath, looking up,
awed by its cold flood-birthed hang.
it wasn’t going to baptize her
or even sympathize. this
codex of battling threads.
this eon-strong message
housed in relentless pulp.
it would die and come back
after impregnating a cloud.
after being lost beyond hope
in brackish froth. it didn’t care
and never would. it looked down at her
through a prism of late day,
surrounded by the lives and homes
its armies had destroyed.



---------------------------------------------