Reckoner (take two)

Reckoner

  

Sometimes the lake hides itself

slides its manhole cover over

and it’s over   Shunk

After the reclaiming and the dredgings

the new pilings and the shovelings
we bathe in its shades: gin clear, fluorescent grey

::

Sometimes we float, bumping along

in its screensaver blue shoulder to shoulder

in a simulacrum of friendship

Each heart-warm friend we reckon them up

in rosy dawn we hold and hold them

like a personal flotation device

Each name a bead in the bracelet

Each name a thanksgiving

 

::

Reckoner you know our faces

making light echoes below the ripples

like pockets of air beneath ice

like a Ghost Man on second

Seen and unseen

If we’re not in the lake

where are we?

::

Since we uploaded into the cloud

the earth misses us the ground

It hasn’t rained for months

All our campfire girls

All our drowned fuselages and kelped wrecks

All our pine pollen soft parades

Our mouthfuls and gulped breaths

How many gigabytes is that?

::

The hands of the slave girl

who assembled and delicately wiped

our touchscreens with a carcinogenic solution

her little hands are ruined so we can  

share with smudgeless clarity

So we can build community

::

On the lake a mother mallard

nestles into needles to make her

home above rocks

where a boy with a stick

is sure to find her.

Reckoner, take me with you.

::

In the face of the water at night

stars make replicas of themselves

to replace us

It is starting to rain. Ripples

separate along the blank shore

I want to stand here a little longer

Where is your warm hand

for my hand?