Of Course,​ We Are

I am never not thinking about it.
It stills and it stirs.
Rivers have undertows too.
They say if you ever get stuck don’t fight it.
You have to allow your body to go along because the water knows things you don’t.
And it will eventually send you back to the surface–
just somewhere else.

I wake up with the taste of river water in my mouth. Like I’ve been sucking pennies while I sleep. Copper fillings, fish food, driftwood. Sometimes I dream dreams so tangible, and real, my heart is changed when I wake up. I dreamt about you all night. In the dream when we met I felt so clearly that of course, of course, we are friends. Some unexplainable tether not of this life entirely, but maybe carried over on the shoulders of something and someone else. I know you without knowing you.

It was so real I wondered if you had the same dream, and did you too wake feeling closer to me than before? Saying to yourself, of course, of course.

I do not know exactly how we weave our lives so they make such pretty pictures. Unswum beaches and black-eyed susans. I never pretend to know anymore how other people feel. I try not to wonder at it so much and read instead about how things grow and why the winds change. We have to keep our minds busy, like swimming, lest you get pulled into the under tow again.