Lake Fall

Inkblot shadows 
paint the shoreline.
It seems I am here 
for a Rorschach test.

Rusty hues 
are belied by
winter's kiss in the air
as I skim along the surface 
of the cold watery 

womb of the hills.

To be fair, 
this lake turns 
everyone into a poet.
Gun and Death worshipping men 
come out here to fish 
from their chubby camo kayaks,
fall into a trance,
and find themselves 
using their tactical knives 
to inscribe haikus 
on the lids 

of their tackle boxes.

The lake 

is a silent tomb today.

A curled brown leaf 

floats motionless

upon its perfect twin.

A dead honeybee 

lies completely still

cradled gently 

in a net 

of oxygen kissing hydrogen.

Sweet seductive 

leafrot and deertang 

waft off of shore. 

Where, stark gray treeforms beckon —

Sirens, 

with triple twisting legs 

and rocks lodged permanently 

in their curvaceous crotches,

sing.

Their rooty toe tips 

sip the cool.

I wonder if that is pleasurable?

To nestle a rock 

permanently in your limbs.

I slow my vessel.

My vessels constrict. 

As the sun dips 
behind the hills,

the cool creeps

through my keratinocytes. 
My senses heighten. 
A twinge of adrenaline. 
An averting of blood 
to the interior.

My cerebrum insists 
that the mirror world 
isn't real.
Despite and to spite 
these gray matters,

I want to go there.

But a heron 
with a spear for head 
that Father Darwin's 
forces gave him
(or was it Wallace?) 
pierces the skin,
probing for dinner.

I look up.

A golden maple 
against the gray gloaming 
is a brilliant signal flare, 
a warning —
Paddle quickly now!

Lest you succumb — 
slip quietly 
into the painted mirror.
In the emerald calm,
become a fleshy pale likeness

of those wooden siren mothers above.

.

Bride to the below.

.

.

Entombed and immobile.

.

.

.

.

Rocked gently.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Waiting for the hungry fishes of spring.