At what depth does their dull orange disappear?
I rowed out to where I know the water’s deep,
and in my rowboat: a cargo
of bricks, fifty balanced
across the stern, just so.
At the bottom of this reservoir
was a town. Two towns, in truth.
Its people were paid an honest price
to leave, but no question: they had to move.
I anchor my boat forty feet above
what was once a pasture.
I take a brick from port first
and hold it by its upper-right corner
and dip its lower-left corner into the water
before I let it slip my fingers.
The next one I take from starboard,
but drop from port, and so forth and on.
It’s the sinistra hand that does the work.
I never counted two seconds before one was gone
from touch, and sound, and sight. They sink until they stop
on now drowned and grassless land.
Why do I want to leave a small scattering
of man-made triangular stones
at the bottom of this no-bones
(the cemetery relocated)
body of water? In darkness, who does not love
the faint, hard, orange glow
of building bricks?