The One Who’s Left Water

By Jed Myers

Someone’s leaving water for you

in the last sandy stretch before you

reach Ajo, if you do. Same water

left on Earth for us by the luminous

icy-tailed comets. Same water

Moses struck loose from the rock.

Water of milk welled in the breast

for the naked new traveler pressed

from the first watery house

through the wet lips of genesis. I see

Jesus turning the creosote bushes

to clay vases full of the freshest

quaffs for the lightheaded weaving

wanderers north. And Mary’s tears,

free of salt, spilled on the tongues

of the flaccid pallid little ones

in the arms of their parched bearers.

Some One leaves water for you

in a plastic jug as you come crossing

toward liberty or a cage.

You’ll need this offering first

fallen from space filling your veins

when you meet the officers face

to face. And may the water-bearer

be not arrested, not detained,

nor convicted for such grace.

May the one who’s left water walk

the Sonora back and forth,

as if there were no border.

Jed Myers is author of Watching the Perseids (winner of the Sacramento Poetry Center Book

Award), The Marriage of Space and Time (MoonPath Press), and as of March 2024,

Learning to Hold (winner of the Wandering Aengus Press Editors’ Award—

Source

Portside