George Such Shadow Study

I embrace him but I don’t trust him. He’s certainly not my New Year’s resolution. He stalks me this evening as I walk into the sun, circling a lake in east Texas. Sneaky,

I have to turn around to see him, thick ankles tapering toward his tiny head. He creeps in the long grass, a reptile at the water’s edge. I know the power of his hunger and primitive wisdom, his ancient lusts and sense of direction, how he’s carried by the thumping music, bumping his booty against all he craves. I am the silhouette, somewhere between my shadow and the light.

West Glacier

It all begins at the center, where the 4 directions merge, but I don’t know how we got here, gazing at the stony bottom of Lake McDonald through these 4 orbs— it must mean the two of us are one, or wonderful, or 4ming one rocky mind—who’s top? bottom? what’s right? left? Positions aren’t clear in this underwater sphere, like the 4 seasons here, nine months of winter and three months of relatives— but look at those fall colors—that purple feels like 4play, 4ever on the edge of red and blue—but let’s be in the moment, can you sense the wind on your skin where the 4ground blurs? we’re looking through the water’s faint arousal, the sun splotching its veneer; of course post-modernists say there’s only surface, but they’ve 4gotten extra-textual life— just look at the depths! the 4th wall is gone, come close and lean against me, I’m not Walt Whitman but we can still 4age together, there’s no 4bidden fruit— I’ll whisper in your ear clarity is deception, tell you the mind can be like this icy water, so clear it makes 4ty feet look like 4, makes you think you can touch bottom with an oar, but those stones are boulders— can you see the 4ramina in the floor, hiding pockets from our view? and the faces grasped by hands? one of them screaming like the creatures that 4d our watery dreams— and since our gaze is fixed downward, I should tell you what’s around our boat, the 4rest of cedar and hemlock, its scent in the air, and the snow-covered peaks to the east—and I can paint you more if you’ve never been to Montana be4.