Water Song
Laura Koritz

I carried the water. The bucket knocked
.......against my shins, pulled at my elbows and forearms,
but I imagine the burden burned through muscle and pressed deep

.......into the corners of my mouth, to the holes
where two molars are missing, on the bottom,
.......each directly across from the other. The bucket’s handle

buried into my palm’s flesh, steel wire, I felt the weight
.......rest across my tongue, lifted to my mouth’s roof, kept
silent. Silent as the strength of fingers. Bones

.......like porous beads muffled by meat. Bound by skin. Strength
against the water drawn to Earth as a draft
.......mule toward the soft rush of poured oats, steady

and knowing. Her ears slosh to register sure-
.......footed rhythm, the narrow path, the occasional clash and stir
of ghosts. Her tug on the braided cotton lead, her firm desire

.......like gravity, like the weight of things accumulated…
The leaky ceiling. The polished silverware
.......nested in its drawer. The boiling anger of children. The snail

beneath his shell, the spiraling whorl and apex. His slimy
.......trail. Plumbing. The pipes beneath the ground that drain
the liquid off to secret places, wet places, where it is always

.......muddy. And always autumn, and a bitter
wind blows. Places the mind seeks for comfort, tunnels
.......eroded as the soft spot where the body lies

at night beneath the open window, where sounds feel their way down
.......the ear canal. The courtship of owls, rasping screeches. Leaves
from the dying oak tree that rattle

.......and click like the pricking, multitudinous legs of crustaceans hurrying
sideways to meet the ocean.

©Laura Koritz