Outside the Ark

Let’s say it: we’re drowning
in this urgent minute. the god-
hands, wringing out the water.
We are dead
center of the storm, surrounded
by the drumming of rain
and the smell of spores
lifted by sudden humidity.

Face it, our bodies are broken
and covered in each other’s sweat.
Our bodies are covered
by the last embarrassing lock
of sunlight as it closes, and we
are closer to each other
than a shadow to skin.

How many times do we have to
drown standing upright? How bloated
will my fingers be when they catch
the angels jumping from your tongue?

I’ll say it: I don’t regret loving you,
even under the thunder and cold.
Even the heaven bound saints
have never felt this before.

Promise me, when it’s done,
you’ll know that the water
that buries us will remember
everything. Maybe bodies float
because the ocean is hungry
for something else. Maybe ours
will lift over the horizon like dawn.

Gardner Dorton is a graduate candidate at the College of Charleston for an MFA in Poetry. His poems have been published in After the Pause, South 85 and Rattle, and he has work forthcoming in Homology Lit as well as Glass: A Journal of Poetry.