one take which is why none do

the water is running down and the water is drying up. it is hot and the plants need. all the old nozzles have been rounded up and destroyed. you would have thought it was the guns that were being rounded up, the way people shrieked and sweated. the only nozzle you can now get has a special valve of some sort built in. tamper proof. a limiter. a way to keep in mind both the need and the drying up, the running down.

i go to places like Columbus, Indiana, and go on guided tours of buildings. i like to look at the glass. the sadness within me is incandescent. i have to swallow intentionally to keep the small private sea from spilling out. i make eye contact with the guides. i smile and chuckle quietly at their jokes. i nod and am interested in what they say, or, i nod and feign interest in what they say. i like to look at the glass. i like to look through the glass.

outside it is so still it wavers, shimmers. the plants still all look lush despite, or because of, their need.

back again at my home i listen to frayed ropes creak, listen to stiff buoy bags groan, listen to water ticking and tapping at my walls, my ceilings. underneath my floors. back again at my home i listen to birds, listen to what they drop. there is water everywhere; it takes the shape of bomb and of bird. it takes the shape of wind and of wound. it takes the shape of running down and drying up. last week there was so much water entire hillsides wavered, shimmered, gave way. birds pick their way through the leftover dried off debris.

i walk on ground firm enough to support me, an entire ocean fantastic at my side. a wave breaks white atop a broken rock. i see this in my periphery, glance quickly, and look away. thinking to myself, “i have seen a whale”, i do not wait to have this confirmed and i do not wait to have this denied. in my mind there is a valve. a limiter. i have tried tampering with it. i have tried to remove it.

back again in Columbus or maybe Tulsa or maybe Memphis. maybe some temporary stickiness on a map. there are cheap and poor quality eggs and toasted approximations of bread to eat. there is glass to look at, through. there is so much stillness that it wavers, shimmers. i left a guided tour because i was unable to swallow away my sea. outside i looked back at the building i had just vacated; two long spans of brick sat atop walls of glass. surely there is a name, official, technical, for this span of brick, though i do not know it. the glass walls reflected back the motionless blue of sky in such a way so as to appear to disappear. in such a way so as to give weightlessness to all that brick, there, two long spans of it, dry, unnamed, floating.