Matter

Whatever takes up space and has mass
 
     A wedge-shaped core of darkness
 
A footprint on my skin, pressed from within
 
     Now and again we rise to the surface
 
Suspended by slip-shift of wet particulate
 
     Our apparitions, the things you know us by
 
Once at night beside the lake, an amniotic sea
 
     Beneath all is dark, spreading, unfathomably deep
 
A distant shore sparked lights, we echoed
 
     Our apparitions are simply childish
 
While ferry cleft the water without shatter
 
     A rise to the surface, what you see us by
 
The drop, the deep, its mass may vary
 
     Like eyes meeting her own eyes, searching
 
Love has small hands, a voracious mouth
 
     This self having shed its attachments was free
 
Wait for the night boat to carry us over


                      *Italicized lines are taken from Woolf’s To the Lighthouse