The Reservoir

    The smell of the reservoir——its breeding and corruption：that too was in our heads.

    Our limbs across beds dense with thyme and the rough tongues of mint，

    their needling scents against the unmaking odor of the water downhill.

    The two of us in the night garden above that rift of water filling the dammed-up valley，

    its drowned graves and little churches. The two of us there； the reservoir below：what's proximate， what's distant.

    I envy us that lost August of our bodies， pale and given to the sounds of breathing and skin

    that silenced our other natures. In a tangle of stems，the season's plait of green，

    our forgotten selves，a moon-white leg and length of back sunk in the loam，

    the memory of our shapes still in the dirt， in the underground hives made from thaw and ice.