The Pool
You mirage a dead world
in the white pool.
White rush and silver rush at twitterlight
meet and desire as the shy boy
lifts from his lover.
White rush and silver rush at twitterlight
touch in the wind and sleep.
Duck-green and willow-silver . . .
has no wing touched your cheek?
Is there no bird
to weave a nest between your sullen limbs
and hatch a songster,
(amber with lizard eyes)
to chirp above your phrases: “Love, love, love . . .”
Your world dies from the surface of the pool.
Why are your hands not on the willow leaves
to feel the sharpness and the thin, soft flower?
To feel . . .
love wrinkle at the touch like a soft bird?
This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on June 26, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.