I remember that rainy night in the pool, the water milky and white where it curved in the dark. Every droplet that crashed from the abyss up above, a small storm from your past, steam off our skin, silenced cries from a dove.

You were so scared, so exposed, struggling with your swim cap to keep the water from your ears. What if it leaks in and whispers your fears? What about sight and sound, what about the route, the safest way, the ground? You tested the seal of you goggles, blinking new eyes. Where does this lead? Why can’t I see? What if you drop me? What happens to gravity?

Where were the ropes? Where were the stars? Where can I touch? Where are the feet? Why are there lanes? What is this square? What is this liquid? What lives down there?

What if your breath left your chest for good? What if the bird left the nest? Left his hood? Where is the dust and the dirt and the trees? Run faster, night is upon us, I can taste the chlorine.

I also remember that night at the sea. The moon like an anchor, the sea sequined and free. Your fears dropped gently like jeans on the sand. You knew where to find me. I was right in your hand.

You ran and you played, we were protected by time. The gold dusted shoreline under our feet held us together far from the heat. It was always the ocean crashing on rock. It was never a feather, it was never a flock.

The inland sea was the place you felt safe. Circles upon circles all locked with a gate. I never got in, I never did see. I climbed till I bled, I cried in my bed…everything about me was too scaled too gilled. Everything inside you wouldn’t ever be filled.

You believed I could live through the winter alone, under ice, underfed, undone, unknown.

But instead I dug deep and tunneling sand, I made my own canyon and found my own land. The waters here are peaceful and blue. The sky has its secrets. The foot has a shoe.

In the rain, in the pool, in the night, I was fooled. I thought I could be a new world for you. And adventure a journey with courage and leaps. I would hold you. I’ve got you. Put your arm around me. Hold your breath, hand on chest, three times give a squeeze.

But you disappeared to an island one week. You never returned, we never did speak. I grew up and grew old, you flew up and flew east. The gator, the clock, tick, tock, tink.