...Practising Modernism
...E. KRISTIN ANDERSON
Theseus and I lie on the couch,
Close Window
his thigh against mine, watching
the television. The wind stops
to catch its breath and I whisper, this is never
good news. You see, they will always
want him back. One quiet afternoon
at the lake I allowed myself to float away
from the shore, pretended I had drowned,
imagined the pressure of water filling lungs.
He was out for a swim, saw my hair
descending from the surface, my cheeks’ pallor
in the lake’s gray-green. As he took me
back to shore he told me his fears of the
encroaching winter and I asked him
what he was doing on my side of the dusty books
that line my library. The water was warm.
It lapped at his ankles, saying, This is how
I intended you to fall in love.