Pencil Dive

I think always, when leaping 
feet first into a swimming pool,  
of that thin pocket of 
time when, if it could be slowed 
or stretched or stopped even,  I 
am—literally, it could be  
argued—standing on the water.  
From this perspective, what is 
not possible? Of course,  
I’m just kidding. I never think 
about this. Instead, I’m sure, 
if anything, in that minor but 
roaring confusion between  
surfaces, I think of breathing,  
breath held and released, water, I 
think of floating, the prismatic 
sun above and below and above,  
a sinking pressure, a return  
to the surface that is only inevitable 
after the fact. From this perspective,  
it is possible, in the smallest 
moments, which, after all, cannot be 
lengthened, to imagine  
everything is as it should be.
 

Tipping Point

The people walk from the dust storm on the highway into more dust and then more dust and then sun. Outside the dust storm, the day is clear. Clear as in free from storms. Clear as in transparent.  We can clearly see the people walking from the storm covered in dust. They can see us and are pointing. “There’s been an accident,” they say. “You mean the dust?” we say. “No, we mean the  highway,” they say. They are not pointing at the highway. They are pointing at us. In truth, the forecasters forecasted wind but said nothing of dust, nothing of accidents. How could we have known? The dust says, “I am wind made visible.” “Silly dust,” we say, knowing dust is dust, wind is wind. We can see the edge of the storm. The storm appears adamant. What of the accident? The sun says something, but, oh, such distance. In truth, outside of the storm, there is no wind. “Should we put our hands up?” one of us says. “That would suggest guilt,” another says. “Why don’t you put  down your dust?” we say “No, thank you,” they say. “Please,” we say, “brush yourselves off, clean up. Would you like some water?” “We prefer the dust,” they say. “Surely not,” we say. “Oh, yes,”  they say. They are still pointing with dust-shagged fingers but with clear effort now. The dust has become something to carry. “Well, we should be going,” they say. “Yes,” we say. “There are  others,” they say. We know. Just as we know they will be made to give up their dust. Just as we will be made to confess. We can see them walking away. In the clear day, covered in dust, they have become the storm.

Adult Children 

Not another day, not another day,  
my sister sometimes grumbles  
in the morning dark, with closed eyes,  

as the set alarm calls for some kind of waking 
response; she tells me this while we’re home 
together for a week visiting my parents,  

and the way she tells it is funny,  
as it’s meant to be, as she means it to be 
because we’re fine, mostly. From where we sit 
 
in our parents’ house we can look out on a winter  
Lake Michigan and watch the waves move thickly, 
as if we can see the water reassembling
  
into ice, caught somewhere in the process of 
becoming. From where we sit, it would be easy to 
see significance in this, to see ourselves,  

adult children home with our lives to be family 
again, reflected in this reassembling,  
in this in-between state. Our dad likes to say, 
 
time is not a renewable resource, and this too 
might be layered onto the lake between shore 
and horizon, as we age, as our parents age,  

as the water continues as water does. Actually,  
I’m not sure that I’ve ever heard our dad say this,  
but we like to repeat it as something he once said 
 
and laugh because it’s sad and urgent. On different 
shores at this very moment there are lives being 
lived that are much harder than ours.  

We know this. We say, how do you think  
Dad’s doing? We say, about the same,  
which we realize is not as good as it was.  

Of course, Lake Michigan is big enough that, if 
we were so inclined, we could imagine it 
stretching on into the distance forever, we could  

allow ourselves to believe in what we know 
is not true. If we were so inclined, I imagine we 
could find comfort in an expanse so terrible.