Do Fish See the Way We Do?

-
The river barely covered our ankles,
but it was cold and the
summer had begun a few weeks earlier.

We stood,
you and I,
against the running shadows
dripping from the overhanging branches
and washing to the adjacent shore,
letting the pebbles and stones
break our feet in places pleasant,
thinking they were an army of lovers,

-pretending-

we were an army of lovers…

You said things then;

I was listening to you from under water,
and that’s the way it usually was,
remember?

You’d talk, and I’d drown,
breathing only as an afterthought.

I don’t want to think about that, though.
Let’s think about something different.
Let’s think about the plans
we’d made to return to Italy,
to speak another language for a day,
to trace the angles of the Sistine Chapel,
corrupt and speechless…

but the water was cool on our feet,
and the summer had only begun.

-JR Simmang

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