Sunday Morning With Music

Sometimes winding along the sky-register,
sometimes dark as turning

through water, mud, the periglacial
lake reeds—though whatever noise they make

is haphazard, all bristling mane
and the horse itself,

and not unlike a lover returning
from wherever the fire is to wherever

the plate of the body is cold.
Two percussives, we rattle

against each other toward the wire outskirt
of what the eye can see:

the boat hauled out of the water,
the rower’s torso lean as the hull

as he lifts from shadow
into shadow until the whole grooved network

of rower and scull is inseparable,
sturdy and tipped blue.