One Poem
Portrait of a Lake
sch edules take over i
h some thing i
ear he ar a bl
ink some on has asked
for or a bout over email s
i b o
ut a # of cha
llenges em erge
we lo ok + lo what
ok for ever
a man |enjoys s la
ng ke view
lo oks from us to us
a h l ies —
eron f by
a side walk is w e
est en ll p
ding + gol fers are back
to fuck everything up to g
weird looks + be ive
too friend
ly
i sling a m
way i’ in
the lake
some hour —
a pp pect ma ybe
l ex whole
ness or whatever i’m assu ming
h o discuss nous
wever i name things
w/ diat oms + decide to be
unhealthy
contrarians generally app
for cont’
d fore reciated
bearance kindnes i,
s wim
or whoever — go for a s
engendering a politics of swimming
wh s
ich i ay no to, to
be ethical
measure d re
sponse
measured response ti
s the bo ck
xes
ful fills expectations ach eives
fundi ng goals t o
save my precious creatures
in the muck
producing this play s out
ren dering st ream bo
o tto s
pr ducing m
stre am bottoms or
la ke bottoms we can
wallow in wh
ich is utopia
for the a rage walker
ve may be possibilities
are remote + the lake
fence a em broils
pparatus nings
them in mea
compelling them to not
may
be this is paranoid
slug is m y inter
t ind locutor
+ o her my critters maybe
i express ambivalence i ex ss
anxiety y they i pre
reply some ing i w ll not say what
th th
ey take over me
th ey take over
me over what
lat er we (owl + i) si
t quiet ly to a
gether which is series of
things, it enacts t hin gs
our achie
vement is nothing @
all
why this why t ha t
the wind get s in w e
a ha ve a l oo or yes
k of w ry bu t als o o
f joy if things cd get this way
they can get another w ay
+ then we refuse to describe
a lake
no d ab le pattern a colossal
iscern fuck-u p
we commiserate — w t t
e commiserate abt i we alk
in hushed tones ab t is or t t
t h ha
it comes down to this it com es
down to th is
it comes down to this
a swarm of insects h m e
’ as
+ i m talk ing to some tep id
do g walk ers ab t th e we
ather they can’t be lie it
t ve
the swarm insis s on something
they really insist on it
i say no we are a collective
an example o f a l a
ke dis mu
gruntled tilated
wh ich can sti ll be enjoyed
he ry
i + maybe others t for hours
to unde rstand a lake what
does it want what does it have to say?
∩
Austin Miles is from southeast Ohio. He has poems published in Moss Trill, Eulogy, Ballast, and elsewhere.