On my own now with the lake, lake-water’s
suck and slap against a wooden jetty
accompanies the solitary, middle-distance
heron that my eyes follow in its take-off
and heavy flight beyond their farthest reach.
I can walk for yards across these narrow planks
and touch the tips of reeds on either side
of me, where they come level with my arms:
the reeds move in the water as they give
under my hands, then come back to their places.
To see her arms and long wrists in the water,
her fingers slim and definite as reeds,
would be too much, and in the building quiet
admit that now, when nobody can hear,
it might be a relief to scream aloud.
As I turn towards the interrupted noise
where reeds are parting for me like a sea,
my heron circles back from the far shore,
aloof, but still checking on everything
in the water, to see what is really there.