The smell of the reservoir——its breeding and corruption：that too was in our heads.

    Our limbs across beds dense¹ with thyme and the rough tongues of mint，

    their needling scents² against the unmaking odor of the water downhill.

    The two of us in the night garden above that rift³ of water filling the dammed-up valley，

    its drowned graves and little churches. The two of us there； the reservoir below：what's proximate， what's distant.

    I envy us that lost August of our bodies， pale and given to the sounds of breathing and skin

    that silenced our other natures. In a tangle⁴ of stems，the season's plait of green，

    our forgotten selves，a moon-white leg and length of back sunk in the loam⁵，

    the memory of our shapes still in the dirt， in the underground hives made from thaw⁶ and ice.