“Who Flies, Who Swims” by Wendy Battin

I have come inside to tell you
the world floats around us,
insolent weeds and grape arbors,
bottles and rust.
Leave me alone to sing,
I will bother no one.
I remember a boy
who danced with a fish.
How can I answer
his mutterings,
that I should remember him
diving there?
He’ll dive forever
unless I forego
memory, song,
my fool’s-truth lever
under the solidly wrong.
I remember a man
who loved me forever,
so briefly.
I remember a woman
who told him yes
I will love you forever.
She is still singing
and he is gone.
This is not his song.
Soon it will happen.
I am getting older
and breathing thinner
air at this altitude.
Thinner and colder.