Days I can’t feel you, I dive my body
into the deep end, pluck golden leaves
from the silty bottom, nearly drown.
I push my body against concrete, surrender
to ribboning light, grow rapturous
in the gravity of quiet. Days I can’t see you
I continue my study of beaked whales
and pink dolphins—mystery species
who survive by going stealth, unsurveilled
by the terror. Away from the carnival
of recognition, I could be the moon.
I could mother myself by swimming circles
around an absence until it speaks. Whatever in me
might nourish you mends itself
in the undrowned part of the planet that navigates
by the depths of untraceable tongues.
Days I can’t feel you, I let myself feel you.
I study the blueprints of bioluminescence
in underwater caves. You do not dim.