Thin Water

Thin water (call it that) but it is everywhere,

Insistently covering, coating everything—

Pebbles, grass, swaths of concrete, tracks of tar, the trees—

Soaking the air invisibly, dripping, puddling,

Wet, wet, wet. Shivers run down my back. I pull my

Skin close to the bones. A big breath—and out I go

To haul the garbage bag out to the distant curb

Navigating petty lakes across the ocean

Of thin water; then back again to fetch that blue

Recycling Bin full of its humid cargo of

Spent bottles, cans, and plastics sacked to save the world.

There are these times when for a week of Sundays, seems,

The sun must hide behind a massive grey or fog

So thick thin water turns quite visible and white, and

The faint light only hints at what I cannot see:

Houses across the street, the lake between, the docks

Down there where in some distant future yachty things

Will moor and white swans will seem to move without the

Locomotion of webbed feet thanks to thick water

That carries them darkly, but glitters as it

Reflects the light that, in some future, shall be back.

Will it dry out? Or will fake January last?

I Pray not. Sick of thin water and obscuring

Fog, sick of fake news and fake months that should be cold

Instead—and brilliant—the Sun in charge again!