How it tastes different in a Dixie cup or a china mug
How I stand with my thumb over a hose and spritz it onto the roses
and listen as it spills across their leaves
How it is underneath us and above us, in our blood and eyes
and pipes in the walls but we forget it is not ours
How water striders and backswimmers skid over it
How we know it by its sounds as it sluices or crashes or slips away
How it waits obediently at the faucet
How it can be poisoned but never cut in two with a knife
How it is broken into over and over
by the talons of osprey
scooped in the bills of swallows
pushed aside by the webs of mallards
but still it closes again
I love the way it smells different on a lawn, on a sidewalk
in a marsh, in a river, in a lake
I love the way it never argues or makes a point, as the wind makes a point
but always lets go and slides away
I wish my mind could do that
When my father died I took three baths in one day to calm down
After the funeral I watched the moon on the ocean
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