1.
Rain carves the air, slicks down the tiled roof and then my cheeks. I taste moss without seeing any. The temple is cool and wet at my back. I strain to hear the fortune teller over the staccato eating away at stone. He studies my long face, proclaims:

beware water
consumes stilled stones
the rising tide drowns.

2.
Water splits under my twin, ripples in the wake of his dive. Chlorine sags the air. Patient applause; he remains a dark smug beneath the surface. My mother’s grip stains my arm red. Water sloshes over the rim into drainage grates—a tidal pool recycling.

water stills
becomes mirror-smooth,
an azure eye.

3.
Water splits the horizon, a great blue iris. I walk with my twin to where the water licks away the sand. Our brother’s ashes stain our hands grey. We learned what to do watching our parents. We kneel, offer what we hold. The tide is always approaching.

water houses
quicksilver fish,
captured by the wave.

4.
The quarry splits down into layers of earth. Exposed granite hollowed and housing a large reservoir. My older brother fishes from the tongue of land that curls into the pond. The tide builds, licks apart the arc of his feet, pulls him beneath the mud.

water erodes,
ferries scales of light
to a distant shores.

DC Restaino