In the waters, there is a gift of coal and ice
merged like a soul awakened to its chi -
bursting out from the stomach lining, curator
of gravity. Balance and propriety, bulging forward, a visible
mystical entity in need of surgery and of wonder.
In the waters where hair follicles rest on a sandy wet floor,
where there are things that have never known the sun,
fear is eased by compassion and there is no downfall
that cannot also be a redemption. There is the water
and a swelling fluid force that is ever-so-fragile,
but committed to emerge, no more a tide against itself
or a happiness that cannot be embraced.
In the waters, a water-flower has risen, a bit of weed
with glow-in-the-dark leaves, a colour the fishes know.
That flower will find the air, find a way to express its birth,
sowing forward.

-- Allison Grayhurst