after Op. 28, No. 13

This lake is, in part, us. It hoards our stones,
our faces after we have gone. This blue
reflection stains and ghosts its soft scales through
the dirt beneath our nails. We are but bones.

The boat, like grief or a collapsed lung, groans.
We call it our Chopin. We bend it to
our will with hands that shake. We throw a shoe
to hear the thud in different undertones.

Each note vibrates its emptiness. We hold
this fishnet to the moon—in doing so,
we find the holes that we were made to keep.

This music is a thread, a thirst, an old
belief destined to die the way we know
the lake is waiting to be put to sleep.