An Overgrowing Lake

I will love you…
My love is going to be shy at first, but pliant like a waterweed,
Like the horizon over water, like a nest made from bulrush
I’ll kiss the slippery bellies of boats and hands that reach for waterlilies

Ducklings will take off in a flock, a blue feather will shine in a ray of light, cattails will fade out of bloom again
And I’ll love stronger and more lascivious and [more morbid/scary] every passing moment
The slender swimmers, washers and waders [all female], the bugs, reptiles and slithering things, I will love you all in this universe

With my depths, insects, ducks, sunken castles and mermaids, waterspirits,
and dragonflies that think that they rise above my love
But soon return circling the bare field of water
That I have left for your freedom, because you need it
So you can’t feel the strangling circle of bulrush
That comes slowly without shadows
To make you subside in a sweet and blind stillness
In the strangling ring of love