✨ Names across Water

Shifting myth of us ...

Names across Water

The moon, waxing crescent, rose
in my circle of tea as I sat on the deck
in the last of the dark. Little skiff, coracle, balsa
canoe. Shifting myth of us, at harbor in a cup.
Now the sky’s all color and light, neon contrails,
moon paling and home in her high meadow.
Across the river, a fox’s wild cry, more raven
croak than dog bark.

                                           Wherever else we are, love,
we’re also in this silvery myth, chill waters below
and slapping the sides as we make the moves, large
and small, that keep our craft afloat. We edge
toward or away from the center. With our oars
or feet, we push off the sudden rock, the snag along
the bank. When we capsize, so far we’ve
surfaced gasping, called each other’s names
across the water, found whatever floats.

—Catherine Abbey Hodges

From Empty Me Full: Poems, Gunpowder Press, © 2024. Used by permission of the poet. Photo by David Boca, Creative Commons, via Unsplash.