Tap

Standing, I turn the tap

And the river runs through me

Bathing my fingers in cool serenity

I recall sitting sublime on our riverside
Talking in the balm of a breathless July evening
Fingers trailing

Dusk’s midges rose from the almost still water
Fluid black clouds
Threatened pin prick bites

You laughed as creeping cigarette smoke
Hastened their retreat to munching bovines
Lethargic in summer’s lolling haze

Led inevitably into cool darkness
The conversation drifted, meandered, echoed our companion
Yearning for an ocean to wash our souls clean

The shooting star distracted us
Its death igniting a different passion
That waned too with the fading moon

I recall my digits, invisible in the darkening murk
Of night hidden river
Slowly numbing in the chill water

Shocked, I turn the tap clockwise
Ceasing the flow
Enough is enough

Lizbeth