artwork: ralph murre
by Bob Wake
Splashing is everything;
and everywhere, like your
laughter, water ascends.
The sponge is useless, bloated
with ballast: we salute its sinking,
and then we return to splashing,
which is everything.
Water adores you, chasing
the shifting shoreline of your
belly’s rise and fall, gaining
millrace momentum
at the elbow waterwheel, and
turning to rapids o’er the
Koshkonong kneecaps.
You take to water like a
Baptist, your spirit sopping wet
and gleeful. God is a soap-bubble
bursting and rebirthing himself
splash upon splash.
We are made innocent here,
buoyed by newborn lungs.
Neptune is your godfather,
but you are my son. You are
here. We have splashdown.
And like Neil Armstrong
back from the moon, you
have arrived to remind us
of unlimited possibilities.
~ previously appeared in Caffeine and Other Stories
(Cambridge Book Review Press)
