Sir Michael sat on the riverbank, quietly,
sure beyond question that he wasn’t there.
Feverishly he searched the running water;
There it was, his jumbled reflection, blurred,
he couldn’t trust his eyes anyway.

Michael perfumed his hands with the soft wet mud,
deeply inhaling the earth’s pungency, and there were his fingers, his palms—
faintly, unconvincingly, incarnate.

The odor pulsed with Michael’s breathing,
hands fading with each expulsion of air,
reappearing with the intensity of their scent.
Sound.

Pursing his mouth, Michael whistled loudly, and
basked in the physicality of his atonal cry.
Ah, he inhaled again, there were his hands;
exhaled through tightly sealed lips, there were his ears,
outlines in a coloring book, filled lightly for a moment with
a vibrancy, a shrill whistle.

Sliding closer to the edge now, peering into the quivering
canvas of hazy mirrors—this was not enough;
he held his breath, and let go.
Touch.

The icy water ravaged every crevice of skin,
each pore suddenly illuminated, existing.
Air! But there was none; Michael’s lungs
filled with his own reflection.
Air! But there was nowhere for it to go, Michael’s body
began in the water, and would end if he surfaced.

Sir Michael fell to the bottom of the riverbank, quiet as death,
sure beyond question that he was there.
Here I am, he thought.