Lake Echo
by Rebecca Valley
If I give you the lake now I
give you the architecture
of my blood
The Weatherman's instruments spinning
at his station, in unison
water bubbling as it freezes without
touch
I see you from a distance with
your vials, testing us
trying to find the chemical that
broke
and meanwhile the bodies of extinct cats
skulking on islands we don't visit anymore
and meanwhile the Weatherman licking his fingers
and putting them inside my mouth, touching each
purple eyelid and reporting
fifty percent chance of snow
I am the little bruised girl who thinks of you now
when in the distance music of open corn
and my body resettled
I want to want this water I
want the Weatherman, his warm arms around
my trunk tongue in ear
but it comes back the
music it comes
back
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