the tide rises, the tide falls | an oceanic literary magazine
Introduction to Hydroscapes I
by
Jess Gersony
All light of yesterday in this place
is now hidden. It could be the ground
heating my feet or it could have fled
with the stream into some larger body.
I wait for the moon, but for the trees
the moon means only tides pulling
something closer. Could all water have been
in this lake? I could collect a lake.
I am a lake 1,000 feet deep,
deep blue with white caps, trembling.
The moon pulls and I am flattened, hollowed
and stretched thin. All light wanting to go
anywhere, to not fade with reflection
off of water bodies, the light lost to space
murmuring where did it all go? Last time
I lost it all, I had empty hands, lakes
evaporated, clouds formed. Now, the eternal
water and I warm ourselves in the new light.
Jess Gersony (she/her) is a poet and plant biologist exploring human-environment interactions. Her poetry has appeared in The Sycamore Review and Off the Coast.