TREADING WATER

Spread your arms

as though you could fly.

Darning needles zigzag,

their veined wings

stitch the lake to the sky.

Water, warm as apricots.

Long grasses phantom the lake’s unfathomable depths,

plumb lines of weed.

Moted light shoots up from below,

luciferin,

the colour, up close, between cedar bark and ale,

between weak tea

and pale liquid gold.

The scent of the water is the scent of green tea,

or camomile, slightly off.

Sun grips your bare shoulders.

Your forearms, held over-long in the water,

start to dissolve,

turn into lake.