After the photograph Manatee Drive 02 by Isabella Hayeur, 2011
No one who
has ever seen
a body of water
has not imagined
drowning. Surface
divides my eye
and my breath
holds me.
The underskin
of the canal
grows light
that dangles
down, tickling
the cement throat.
I figure we are
mostly helpless
against water
because we
are mostly water.
When I go under
I count:
1 Berryman;
2 Berryman; . . .
If you dream
of drowning,
you wake up
under an ocean
of air. There are
so many stupid
sayings I confuse
them all. I know
what to never
bring to a gun fight
but what should
I never bring
to a drowning?
Not even bombs
intimidate water.
One motivational
saying goes:
If you don’t give up,
you win. But I’m
pretty sure that’s not
how it works
or as Kafka said:
The meaning
of life is that it
will end. The water
both buoys
and buries us.
To prepare yourself
for your near-life
experience: dip
your open eyeball
into a bowl of cold
water. There is
always tension
on the horizon.
I will be the one
wearing rust
and erosion.
Algae may one day
rise up against us,
but until then
please allow me
to oxidize in peace.
Usually the last
thing we ever do
is gasp.
###
Matt Rasmussen is the author of Black Aperture, winner of the 2013 Walt Whitman Award and also a finalist for the National Book Award. His poetry has been published in Gulf Coast, Water~Stone Review, Paper Darts, Poets.org, and elsewhere. He received a 2014 Pushcart Prize and is a founder and editor of the independent poetry press Birds, LLC. He lives in Robbinsdale, MN.
“Canal” appears in The Tides (TLR Winter 2014)