Response to the Tapir’s Night Journey Downstream
Transitions define my body.
Look how the current splashes my legs turquoise,
the moon silks my chest,
and wild solitude cools my nimbus to blue, white, and lavender.
Behold the purple eye that guides my canoe down the Amazon,
riding the night rapids in a dream of passages, openings, and
confluence.
And see how curving shapes in the dark transport me to waterways
that empty into wider and wider rivers
until the open Atlantic receives my vessel at journey’s end.