Waterscape

by Dean McKenzie

(a memory from Cafe le Gare, 1989, reading with Dean for the first time…)

In the rain mirror
the city is downside-up.
The silvery splash of mist drops
in a cloud of grey:
sheets of glazed pavement
reflect the urban vertical.
Two distant points vanish:
one is invisible above my head.
All the mist hides it–the rain source–
a pinnacle of ultimate wet
at the zenith.
It spits its nickel-silver life-breath stream
down down down…
Down to the pavement that holds it flat.
Splash concentric waves
micro-duplicate tsunami
Yet hold flat–
MIrroring glass-concrete-people
And splashes their reflections
down, down
Down to a nadir of light-warp
Far beneath my feet.
Down to a
Second vanishing point at
the darkest edge of vision–
surreal–
Yet my eye beholds the invert
as far less wearying
than the grey wet figures of
virtual image above water-ground.
There, in glass, concrete, steel, pavement
human motion ceases
And all is waterfall to create mirror.

If I squint as I stare straight down
I see myself at the
very bottom of this rainscape.

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