Clade Song 4

Water = One

floating is about density

At dinner, he orders both beer and lemonade
I lean into him
away from whomever else I might have loved
to sleep in a cocoon of pine boughs
to run through the woods in the dark of night
to keep nothing in our pockets
we jump off the dock when we can’t see the water
swim with the lightning bugs, kick through the weeds
find heat in the willows
make my body
of these things
an oar, a life jacket, a canoe

Judy Halebsky's book, Sky=Empty, won the New Issues Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the California Book Award. Her chapbook, Space/Gap/Interval/Distance won the Poets-Under-Forty award from Sixteen Rivers Press. On a fellowship from the Japanese Ministry of Culture, she trained in Noh theatre and Butoh dance in Japan for five years. The MacDowell Colony, the Millay Colony, and the Canada Council for the Arts have supported her work. Originally from Halifax, Nova Scotia, she now lives in Oakland.