I Follow You
Janine Canan
We are moving together in this conversation. You slipping into the hot black rubber suit--I am astonished but watch with my attention tuned to every detail. The waves are enormous and the water is cold. You go flapping down, your legs disappearing, your shoulders set in perfect balance with your partner's, then you go under. A great nebula of white foam follows this disappearing act, it seems to approach me faster than consciousness, I must be in the spacecraft soaring down the opaque midnight highway. Or you are saying, Those waves are too wild, you go in if you want to, I'll stay up here and take some pictures. In one a spray arcs up over a boulder--you arrested this moment with your fingers like a lace. The photographs lie spread on the table and we pore over them with incredible curiosity, but do not touch. Imperceptibly the bromeliad's green arm grows toward us. You step over to adjust the curtain and I follow you.
