Oasis

At dusk, the pool waits in silence, 
found by your feet after you rip up 
the map. Suddenly in the tangled grasses
and twilight the birds stop calling, 
and the trees finger your face. 

You shed your jacket, drop the rod 
that measures a son lost to highway 
or gun, a daughter to cancer or fist, 
a parent to diapers and bibs, each 
ending the wrong size and time. 

In this clearing, your story is known 
without words where the logic twists 
from sight. Everything pools and settles.
And then the pond of blood becomes water,
cold and real; we kneel at its edge to drink.