Before you even saw a lake
or a river or an ocean
or lifted half asleep
with stars washing over you
—hours old and already you hear
the nights left over from the Flood
and in the distance one wave
waiting for more darkness
as if it had a twin somewhere
—your first bath —by instinct
another minutes later, an overflowing
the way each tide
never forgets the other
—two baths and after those
nothing matters, though all your life
you wait for just a trace
some splash you almost believe
you heard before —just born
and the warm hands under you
reaching out from the soft waves
—before you ever saw water
you learned to cry —a natural! bathed
and the night beginning to recede
to feel its damp sand creak
against what must have been the Ark
or the sun or your cradle breaking apart
under these stuffed animals
—a single dove clinging to the rail
and the first morning.
by Simon Perchik
from Autumn Sky Poetry Number 21, April, 2011
Photo by Christine Klocek-Lim
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