Forward Inside Death Spiral 4

art by Richard Hanus

by Carolyn Oliver

 

Forsaking every landscape
but this placid plain, their bodies wed

skill to physics. Her skull floats
down, risks the ice as if

she means to kiss his blades.
What kind of love imagines

he could let go of her wrist
he could let go of her
he could let go
he could
he—

This is the easiest death spiral.

That year of brief landscapes
my friends’ pity towed me

to a little house plunked down
by the bay. We left our clothes

and beers in soft cold sand
one night, ventured out so deep

my breasts floated like shadowed
silver apples, useless half moons.

Our hands cupped and spilled
 the easy water, when jade flared

from a stranger’s dock, they groaned
their easy laughter, my friends.

My friends, laughing. Out of arms’ reach.
Was it their love that spared me, or physics?

That night, the tide was coming in.

---