Rapt and Aware

82

CIRQUE

Rapt and Aware

—after Michael Burwell

Those fish, the ones with a snout like a saber, gleaming coins for eyes, bodies long and sinuous yet here we float, our flesh clothed in soft green mold.

Though we sing with two mouths, our thoughts are one. We come together on the cusp of the sea—fascinated by the shape of your hand, the drape of your arm, the way your throat sieves silver water.

We were inventing a language. Something to do with our mouths, our tongues curved elusive in the sea caves of our teeth.

Under waves imbibing light from above, at first glance we pose nude in scale and fin, spinning eel-beautiful down-dangling fish-like. After dark we lure and bob. We are two salamander sylphs, water embodied, blue and aquamarine as hazy scrim.

What you feel in the sea is our octopus reach. What you see below is our wet silver gaze. What you hear tonight is the wail of the waves.

Two halved spirits we bivalves— flail shriveled fingertips white and ghostly. We have swallowed the bait—hook, line & sinker— swilling salty spritzers in our underwater saloon. Watch us surf the breakers. Listen to us croon.

Ice Frog Janet Klein