Faulkner

I follow him all the way inside the light

all the way inside the ice water

until I am on my own.

There I hear something like a Siren,

something that is trying to lead me astray

and meanwhile I’m telling him I know

how to swim, but he makes me breathe underwater

his eyes hard like blue coal, and when I look up

I see the moving bodies laced with flame and time

following the bend like that into the vortex more real

than anything else, and just when I’m there, in the smoke,

his hand in mine, he reaches in, easily, slowly, to the back of my throat

down beyond my rib cage, like they all try to do

his hand squeezing my heart, the beating held still by his hand

the blood suddenly broken from its path