I WAS NOT EVEN BORN WHEN YOU BECAME AN EXPERT


by Nick Sturm & Wendy Xu

I am awake next to the lake and the lake
is asleep and has been sleeping
since the universe cracked open and you
invented canoes. We are quiet together
when the law is coming after us. It is so easy
to break the law when the law does not even
know it is not going to last forever.
What is going to last forever is the way
you steer our canoe into the tall reeds
like a thick beam of light. In here the law
is so unbelievable! The air touches us
everywhere! I say that it is a good thing
to be awake and young and not some
translucent gathering of very small particles.
But we are all made of very small particles,
which is what you tell me as you breathe
without thinking like you always do.