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.