The Cambridge Water Supply

The track around the reservoir

at dusk sports a dozen joggers

and a pair of women rehashing

Belmont’s loudest divorce. Walking

so tenderly I won’t bruise

the faint violet sea of light,

I admire a round brick water house,

grass sward capping and concealing

the water itself. No way to drown

in the Cambridge water supply,

which simmers under lock and key

and can’t readily evaporate

in gruesome September heat.

Not that I’m looking to drown

or even swim, but a glimpse

of open water would cool me

for a moment, empower me

to review the life I’ve spent

stalking the Chimera to snuff

its fire breath and poke out its eyes.

The joggers gasp and pant and sweat.

The women snarl as they agree

that she should have demanded more

alimony from that creep, drained

his bank account and shoveled him

headlong into the furnace

of his neo-pubic desires.

Neighboring houses crackle

with ordinary lives. Pages

turn under lamplight. A bible

surrenders its angry subtext,

a novel coughs up a character

a reader might wish to befriend.

The evening’s first stars fall, snuffing

in the reservoir’s secret depths.

I should take notes; but warped

by this walk, my handwriting

might strangle itself and render                           

the track around the reservoir

not as a circle but series

of loops, entangling me in syntax

too faintly violet to parse.