There’s no two ways about it:
the man you thought you knew
is dead, speared in the back
by an old friend who just paused
to watch his own reflection spoil
the lake. You were a golden koi,
carrying the weight of the sunlight
on your back, cutting the water
like a dream, unaware of the face
that hung like a blank moon over you,
worrying the spawn and the gunk
of the pond with a forked twig.
Now your boots sink into the mud
and the water clouds, heavy with
the fullness of the sky, the winter.
The frozen glass, dusted white, leaves
a well the size of a breakfast bowl
which you fill with your face and sit
a while; the twig becomes a spear,
and the man you thought you knew
lies washed-out, belly-up on the bank.
Too late to throw him back now;
there’s no two ways about it.