Levee

• Levee

Levee

I had learned, as levees do,
To lyre strength and solitude
And the flood pressed like
Quiet hands against my cheek

Hold me like a cannonball
It whispered right up to my wall
Deep and dark and both of us
We know

Hold me like a honey bee
Covets her one and only sting
Both of us
We know

I had learned, as levees do,
To wind my shape into the view
And the flood pooled like family
Gathered in the ward

Hold me like the air they furl
Inside them as they dive for pearls
Deep and sharp and both of us
We know

Hold me like a honey bee
Covets her one and only sting
Both of us
We know

Oh hold me like the winter felled
The hills of pine to keep them held
Like figurines in glass beneath the lake
It said

Can you hold me like a flood, my friend
Like a thousand letters never sent
Both of us
We know
Both of us
We know

© Brendan Bonsack
June 2014

1. Levee
2. Thirteen
3. Aunt Tacita
4. Flannelette Princess
5. Newtown, Jackson and Main
6. Declaration
7. Call it Home
8. Age of Stone (part ii)
9. Something Borrowed, Something Found
10. No Edges

Once Was Water
Released July 2014