Rhoda Janzen

photo by DABrown


Moonlight Swim

Approach the pond of sleep: at the edge
strip. An orchestra of mosquitoes
tunes its throbbing bows
for the silt smooch-suck of sludge.

Deepening to a swirling eddy,
the bottom sinks away like a stone.
Admit that you are not alone.
Insects kiss the cheeks like pale confetti.

The deeper you swim from the silt shelf,
the more conscious you are of the others,
drowned shadows, wives, mothers,
Accoutrements of your old self

seem all at once a hindrance: panties, socks.
Something tickles the feet. You wonder
what grief weighs the others under,
what sorrows once knotted their rocks

into the hems of petticoats. A nervous
owl strains syllables in code,
portents of the motherlode
that rise like bubbles to the surface.

Somewhere a rowboat has an inkling
that won't be rocked to sleep.
Buffalo gals have secrets to keep,
sorrows like pebbles, sweet and sinking.

____ Rhoda Janzen