for Julie
We remember our speaking—different
—climbing over fences, swimming careful, past our children.
We passed it around, we drank from a bottle, the children took to falling asleep.
There—the children were once in our words,
heavy water slept on. Under the water, back up for air, under water,
and we are swimming spilled into the water, creaking with the wood and water.
When the water sounds, careful.
What about the only thing—the nights, their faces covered, the washcloth in their hands.
And these, they wash it away: warm, careful, want, the rinsing.
Their sound lit up the streets.
Outside: tell us, tell us about it: the touched, their windows, those, this, the shores.
Tell us things like that.
Tell us about these.