The boat is already gone
by the time the water
finishes talking about it,
two long seams
folding back toward each other
like a wound
that has decided,
on its own schedule,
to close.
Nobody teaches the lake
to do this.
It just remembers
displacement
the way a body
remembers a person’s weight
on the other side of a mattress,
a dip that holds its shape
long after the sleeper
has become
someone else’s weather.
I used to think the wake
was proof of the boat
evidence, a signature.
Now I think it’s proof
of the water’s patience,
its willingness
to hold a disturbance
just long enough
to be honest about it
before smoothing over,
because permanence
was never
the lake’s job.
Somewhere behind every leaving
there’s a version of this,
two lines drawn by displacement,
closing slowly,
not because the leaving
didn’t matter,
but because the water
has other boats to carry
and only so much memory
it’s willing to spend
on the shape
of things
that aren’t
coming back.
