Night Swimming

When it felt hard to be alive

Heat and honey

The lean of an old barn in the distance

There's a lonely man lifting hay and swatting flies

His wife is finishing the dishes 

Both satisfied and restless at the same time.

I can smell the mint on her windowsill

It's a salve for her soul; her life force

When she's not resting upstairs in the children's old bedroom

Remembering what it felt like to rock a fevered baby...

She's walking the country road to her favorite pond

Where she fell in love with frogs so long ago

And swam naked on sweltering August nights

Her skin glistening in moonlight

Permitting her to be in her body for a moment

Finally arriving where she began

A spirit floating in an ether of warm water

Her wet hair tangled in duckweed as the crickets sing

The mind finally still, finding rest in endless possibilities

While the man calls her name

Somewhere in the fields

Wondering why he can never really find her