without your demeaning attention i grow too large, too secure. i began toes-deep at the shoreline, sniffing for the swirls where all the kestrels rise. i gathered the discarded feathers, studied the skittish patterns, and decided to stay in the oily waves.

i find myself adrift in shipping lanes now, directionless but valued. i see now that i need diminution, neglect or some other challenge: without these i grow loud, courageous, captain and crew and seastorms for days. breakers, tall grey thunderheads that charge an ornate prow. irredeemable and unsinkable, at home in the violent heights.

we have been so adept at drowning. somewhere in that dense swamp, there may have been a brief spit of firm land; in wading toward it i lost the surest sign that we would sink or swim. i recognize now that i could never have survived on the flat firmness of the dirt we dredged between us.