Sinking
Oh, Virginia! How I wanted to love you, but I could only ever love the idea of you. Your writing, in college, in all the women's lit classes ... what was it? Too dry? Too academic? Too remote? I tried, as I try again, but you just wouldn't let us all the way in, would you? The part I think I understand is the part I only imagine in the aftermath. When I look at the Annie Leibovitz photo of the river Ouse, I believe I feel what you might have felt. The silky allure of it. The magnetic pull of it.
Virginia’s River
You wouldn’t think a river
Could be so cold
Not this cold
But even as I wade
I feel yet don’t feel
I’ve stood on its banks
A hundred maybe a thousand
Times and watched
Its continual flow
Its smooth current
Rolling along in one
Forever direction
I’ve thought
At different times how
It might feel but never
Until today have I felt
The certainty that
Even with darling Leonard
To whom I owe
All the happiness
Of my life and even
With love and art
And poetry and chloral
And morphine and sunlight
And even with a lighthouse
And a room of my own
It is not enough
It will never be enough
To keep me from filling
My overcoat pockets
With just the right
Number of stones
Wading step
By purposeful step
To - like a child
Going under its
Very first time -
Take one last
Long deep inhale
Before I sink
To the depths
That have come
To mark my life
It’s surprising
How easy it is to do this
To melt gently
Into the Ouse River
And become
Its smooth current
Rolling along in one
Forever direction
