The Flood
Two-thirds of earth, and most of us, is water.
Come life, come death's black, fathomless water.
At the mirror I try to picture the soul.
I raise my cupped hands, full of water.
And think of my birth: the scalpel, my mother’s
skin parting like a sea of red water.
In the dream of the flood I'm always the one
looking back, turning into a pillar of water.
I drag a stick through my reflection: there lies
another, whose name is written in water.
Published in Chattahoochee (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2004).
Two-thirds of earth, and most of us, is water.
Come life, come death's black, fathomless water.
At the mirror I try to picture the soul.
I raise my cupped hands, full of water.
And think of my birth: the scalpel, my mother’s
skin parting like a sea of red water.
In the dream of the flood I'm always the one
looking back, turning into a pillar of water.
I drag a stick through my reflection: there lies
another, whose name is written in water.
Published in Chattahoochee (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2004).
Published: 14 April
2009
© 2009 Patrick Phillips and Southern Spaces
© 2009 Patrick Phillips and Southern Spaces