Numbering the willow's leaves,
not these pages. As solace.
Because anyone can read
the entire history
of collision
in our picture. Our last
sea-sand-mud bath, a digging morning,
plump pails, hopscotching
home on stones
that could be true.
At dusk, mussels exploding
from the pot.
Behind every real object,
there is an object
dreamed.
An ambiguous bile color
can pull me back
to that time.
The children bedwetting,
your phobia re stray
parings. Skinflint
embraces. One rule
of the waters:
When a crest
and trough converge,
they cancel each other
into a plane.
Which were you? And I was—?

____

"Behind every real object, there is an object dreamed" is by Jean Baudrillard, Le Système des objets.