The Cormorant
I move as if through water.
Step. Pause. Step.
The boat ramp is a slick of sluiced timber,
damp and salt-caked under my feet—
but no flinch. Instead, a shift—
a slow, blunt sidle to the right.
It isn’t a retreat but a widening,
a threshold into another world.
I sit and begin the slow,
awkward drag, inching my weight,
palms flat to the grain.
Squat and braced, keeping the half-share,
trading my human walk
for this clumsy, terrestrial crawl.
Until we are settled,
each of us at the edge.
The wings are pinned open—
two dark, ribbed fans sculling the dawn air.
All neck and nerve—a winnowing,
a sudden tendon-flick of the spine,
the sharp beak scissoring a stray feather.
Below, the lake-skin dwindles its ripples.
Then the methodical, ancient ritual of the sun.
And for a moment we belong to the lake.
