This is the breath before

July 2017
Mythology,
Poetry,
Sex

You cannot drown me.

I know you, Arethusa: I am no stranger
to the blameless peril of rivers
when a long dry season ends in sweet and sudden rain.
How they rage against their bounds—as if they would
steal back wasted days; as if they could
drink oceans in an hour.

And oh, so well I recognize
the gushing siren-song
which younger men mistake for promise of swift passage,
forgetting how the undulations of your bosom
are lent their shape by ribs of rock below.
No,

you cannot drown me.

For this time
I will not be swept into the currents, gasping,
struggling for the shore.

This time I will steer a straight course
between your limbs, into the swiftest foam,
straining the oars until they snap,
surrendering all illusion that escape
is possible, that escape
was ever intended.

Because you cannot drown me.

And when you bear me round that fatal bend
where the cataract awaits, roaring, spitting in my face—
when I am certain to break on boulders
while you, oblivious to my fate
fall free into the arms of Alpheios—
then, then,
I will clutch my ruined prow,
fill my lungs,
and leap—

and dive into your glassy curve,
kicking away the sky.
And there, upon your bed at last, I’ll seize you by the tangles
to pull myself further down,
to push myself further in,
to reach the eddies that spin within your deepest folds,

where you cannot drown me.

Then in the stillpoint below some cascade,
face buried in slick moss,
I’ll embrace the sheltering stone,
tracing in the fur a silent epitaph with my tongue. This done,
I will gaze up to shattered sunlight, and in my last, unending breath
I will drink you in—

to join you,
to know you,
to cradle you in rivers of hot rust, in violet dreams,
in thought,
in burning memory.

So let us both begin this voyage unafraid:
You cannot drown the suicide.
— From The Chimeriad. 24 July 2017.