bodies of water

Adrift with my boy in his boat of a bed, he shivers and shakes in the wake of his brain’s storm. We’ve kissed him and dripped cannabis oils between his parted lips hoping it'll calm the seas of the seventh day. I drape my wrist over his hip and feel his wicked twitches, keeping my eyes peeled and hoping his don’t open again to seize.

With my hand on him I fix to heal and calm, sending through my palm what my mind’s eye sees: bodies of water like glass.

Eyes closed, I glide across Pleasant Pond, wind smoothing back my hair, but then I remember its clear skies clouding into a storm and so I go, flowing back to Phantom Lake, deep and dark and serene, where a water ski below my feet slides in serpentine. Just down the hill my sleeping giant Sammamish rests, its faint ripples ironed by mist and then, amidst a desert of dry falls, Deep Lake's face is wreathed with blossoming clouds. Back in Maine, Quahog bay, like the creatures it keeps, is silent, sleek and green. And at last, a river of glass, Chelan, crystal clear and cool. I let these bodies of water flow through me into my sleeping son, whose shivers, I hope, are nearly done.

In the light, his cannabis oils glow golden, and I imagine the drops he drinks as a river of a thousand suns setting over the deep.

Qhahog Bay