Just Five Minutes

Cattails are green, grown like giant leeks.
A slick white heart of concentric rings
sheathed sleeve upon slippery sleeve.
Thick as my wrist now they crowd the shore,

a Manhattan against a thin contingency
of new blue sky. And the lake
is bottle glass blue if only for the fragile sky
that you could tear with a misplaced thought.

There are stories surrounding you this moment.
Stories that stick to your teeth, words lodged
in the throat. Phrases you cannot dig from the pith
of you, as you stand dumb in hopes of inspiration.

Stories will sink and most will rise beyond reach.
Perhaps only one will snake roots into mud, lose itself
in the stand of green reeds. This story may never be read
if it is written at all. Your reckless struggle against this

fragile blown-glass sky, one you could shatter
with a misplaced sigh. Do not think, but reach
and run a hand across one then another velvet tail
as they sway in the wake of the slight wind—

hearing for the first time the sound water makes
as it flows between their white shins. A moment
you try too hard not to think about as it should
only be the in the elusive enormity of moment.