The Lake Has Swallowed The Whole Sky

Some dreams are like glass
or a light beneath the surface of the water.

A girl weeps in a garden.
A woman turns her head and that is all.

We wake up a hundred times and
don't know where we are. Asleep

at the wheel. Saved by
the luck of angels.

Everyone touching his lips
to something larger, the watermark

of some great sorrow. Everyone
giving himself away. The way

the rose gives up the stem and
floats completely, without history.

In the end every road leads
to water. What is left of a garden

is the dream, an alphabet of longing.
The shadow of the girl. Perfume.

Copyright Credit: Silvia Curbelo, "The Lake Has Swallowed the Whole Sky" from The Secret History of Water. Copyright © 1997 by Silvia Curbelo.  Reprinted by permission of Anhinga Press.
Source: The Secret History of Water (Anhinga Press, 1997)