mmmmmcxviii

For the Death that
Comes at an Indeterminate
Speed on the Afternoon of July 5th

I dove into the river.
It was cold
and it was deep.

Near bedrock I hit
the current.  It was
swift and resolute.

I am not much of
a swimmer, it was
frigid and I shivered

for what seems a
thousand miles or
maybe one, I had

no concept nor did
I have any context.
What at first felt very

real soon felt like
cinema or dreamscape.
I stayed tucked below the

water, could hold my breath
for a long time.  That should
have been a hint that this whole

scene was but unreal, that, as
I noted above I dreamt it,
though I shivered wet with

something, maybe fever
that constrained me as I
was a sort of large and

frozen bullet, a pellet of
life as if a swift, low-flying
airplane hovering just over

the ground, or the bed below
the fast-moving river,
traveling at breakneck

speed above a floor
that lies murky beneath
my body as it

floats through at such
high velocity.  Why am I
here?  What possessed me

to dive into the river in such
a rushed and jerky movement.
From what was I running?

And how can this current that
no matter how fast it is traveling,
and how bitter cold this vein

of rush is, be anything but a
way for me to slowly drown?
Unless I can figure out, and

with haste, why I am here,
from what I’m running,
what my life might have

been before that fated dive.
And speaking of fate, is this
all that my life has been gearing

toward, its only direction, toward
a goal at which I was destined
to arrive?  If I can get myself

out of this vein and up through
to the surface, in four...three...
two...one... Did I make it?  Is

this the air tfrom which these
lungs might take breath, into this

feeble, lost and bruised body?  What

of my sopped soul?  Have I simply
dreamt my way back to the surface?
Aside from the life force of water,

which is what, presumably this
river is overfilled, am I the only thing
alive in all of its miles, in all those

I just traveled for a reason I cannot
fathom?  Fathoms?  Am I now truly
at its surface?  What is this echo I

hear?  And that captivating warmth 

I can literally feel from within
the pit of my gut as it moves, 

that warmth, as it moves like

the cold current (from which 

I might but now have 

escaped)?  A warmth that

flows in every possible direction

from my besotted lungs.