Midland Swimmer

‘Are you asleep?’ Like a door that always opens on the same empty closet, the old jokey question you can never answer ‘yes’ to is a snap, in comparison to ‘Where are you?’ Moving, wherever you are. Even your stillness on the back seat takes the bent of action, a kicking reach through swells and drifts of afghan. My live question mark, are they salt or sweet, the waters you riddle? Asking gets me as far as ladling water with a net. Though I can catch your small beached foot, and hear soft waves of breath, the mesh of senses isn’t fine enough to land you now. When you come back, you’ll rub the sand from your eyes and know nothing of where you’ve been. Love is like that: the element we breathe and move through, untouchable and always there.