The Molecular Weight of Water by Jody DeSchutter

I took the images with me
packed them up in a case
and sat by the shore, I listened:

Water as noise
as silence.

I wore the images, took them off
I re-sized them, tailored and trimmed them.
I spread them out over the valley and watched them fill every quiet cranny.

They didn’t fit.

Body. Mountain. Waves of flesh. Wings. Haze. My roots are heavy. Primordial now.

I needed to re-sew them so:
frogs as time tanks
fish as silicon boatmen
bones as water thread
body as horizon, horizon as body
time as tree fingers
water as time machine.

But when expectation shifts its gaze
it faces the perils of non-truths
and falls into the rhythm of a certain non-history.

Time stands still.

Much like Alice’s rabbit hole
much like Eve’s forbidden fruit
we enter, we eat, or we ignore
a curiosity of what comes next
an openness to what came before.

The now is dissolving fast underfoot
droplet by droplet.

I don my primordial gown
to hunt the now
to chase the rabbit
and catch something I have yet to understand.

I ran to the shore, seaweed green.

“Let droplets form and re-form”
Cried the mountain, guiding the water bodies.
“How do you measure it at all?”

I didn’t know
all I knew was how the breeze smelled of salt
and how my hands were pillowed secrets I could cup around it all
never holding it in but only touching each tiny molecule for a moment.

I knew the shoreline
like dad’s hairline
shifted and swayed
it collected our intentions and swept them away.

I knew that wavering watery lines connected all I could see:
the cockroach boats
fishes freed
ugly swans
particularly me.

I knew the layers: silt, salt, and silicon
all settled among the layers of my body too.

I will keep these images and use them to listen
as long as there is silence there is noise.

I will keep running fast until I find the space I take up
or some other useful notion
so I can ask why time doesn’t stand still anymore.