Contributor: John Grey

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I bend over the waters,
make reflection,
as if the surface needs more skin.

You're behind me somewhere,
crushing the grass
in your struggle to be comfortable,
dipping into the book
that opens a door for you,
rooms to glide away into
and leave me here.

How easy it is
to slip into your own self,
to be as autonomous
as the silver shining rock,
the blur of fish tail.

I don't think
and I'm thinking about me.
I stay in this spot
like nothing else can.

A breeze springs from nowhere,
delicate and dreamlike,
devotes itself to the flutter of my hair,
the cooling of my cheeks.

I dip my hand in the water.
My images rises and falls
firmly in place.
The ripple of a lake
is not movement,
I discover,
but its stillness magnified.


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John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in Examined Life Journal, Studio One and Columbia Review with work upcoming in Leading Edge, Poetry East and Midwest Quarterly.