Verdigris

The pond was cold. I swam through velvet, my body
light green as the years oxidizing on a copper charm. 
I was in Maine to see two friends get married. The pond 
just happened to be there, a wet shape for me to divide. 
Six years later these friends would have a child, though 
suspended in the time between two shores I had no idea. 
Meanwhile I slid into my decision quietly, without a sound. 
It weighed nothing. 
Rilke writes of death as something we are born with, 
that we nurture within us our entire lives. 
It’s the only thing I’ll bear, the only thing I’ll raise. 
After dinner, J. asks me if I’ve heard the ice break on the river. 
I wish. I want to hear the voice. The other day, he says, 
he was standing on his pond when it split in half. 
Only he didn’t hear it because he was listening to music. 
I thought of my own version of a pond 
and the September rain jumping off it. 
Swift acrobats. Me, and the rain. Age was still a substance I could slip in 
and out of. It is luck, to be able to perceive 
when the momentous happens. 
Without knowing it, I teach my death how to run 
right through me like a crack.

Lena Moses-Schmitt. “Verdigris” from True Mistakes. Copyright © 2025 by The University of Arkansas Press.