night water

There is something about the presence of a body of water at night, the sound of the

waves or the absence, the light of the pool or the moon. I am heart-tied to the

Atlantic and good friends with Lake Michigan; I know the colors of the dawns and the

dusks, bookends to the ethereal night.

You will never be so alone as when you are floating on your back at 3:00 in the morning,

staring at the sky. Your breathing echoes in your ears and all else is silence; even the

waves are muted. The water is warm and caressing: you stretch your body and arch your

back, it undulates softly beneath you, like a lover who isn’t there.

Overhead, there is a cloud shapeshifting, elongating itself and contracting, like a cat stretching

in the night sky: a dragon’s head, a single star the jewel in its tooth.