The land around here looks like it belongs to the side of a lake,
it slopes downward gently, suggesting a meeting with water,
it front-yard-surfs on grass rippling winds,
it slowly sails under the puffy power of clouds.
but the water is in our bathtubs and sinks,
it is in our plumbing and it gurgles and clanks
when its alcohol content runs low.
Water is forced uphill by a secret pumping station
on the far shore of the State freeway.
When it rains we consider this a drowning,
none of us will swim, considering swimming
a prolongation of our ultimate dark night,
besides our above ground pools allow only space
for the whelping of baby seals, and we honor that.
There is of course, always ice for tinkling glasses.
If the rain persists, we are all drowned by evening
then we can only roll gently, and dare not trust
the floppiness of potted feet,
and so we tumble towards an imagined lake
one that waits for us
at the end of someone else’s drive.
However by morns early light
we are washed up on this tilting land again
and all is as dry as beached fish bones,
bones that are known to be reconstituted into pills
for the medication of occasional overbrightness.
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