River Bathers

By Elaine Terranova

This was no paradise.
The road bristled with ferns.
A tree threw its shape, headfirst
out of the shadows, so I saw
that there was water.  We undressed
and went in.  The human smell
fell away.  Our limbs moved out
from the hub of the body,
so simply connected.  Our skin
was a jumping-off place for light.
You could make a moral of this,
like the dazzle spinning off
Prometheus’s hand: that water
completes us, that without it,
an animal is dust.  From the far shore

rose factories and resplendent dumps.
I held up my head.  I scissor-kicked,
remembering to take in breath enough
to get me through.  Climbing out,
I passed bushes and vines
looking themselves as if they had just
stepped out of the water.  And on
the closest lawns, strange flowers,
cannas and dark dahlias, circled
the grass and rusting iron furniture.

from Damages, by Elaine Terranova, Copper Canyon Press, 1995
Reprinted by permission