STILL IS

Upon upon, no, within within, came a pencil on the sill, the ledge of the tub.

The light was natural, your body, natural.

Left, the white ledge, your pencil rolled, correction: I threw it, correction: I lifted pencil up, I put pencil down. Into the water, under the water. You knew the water was getting cooler, the tepid zone between our asses-- 1 hour since. I think the water wasn't moving there, maybe our arms weren't flailing there, our hips weren't rocking there, and without the movement, the conjugation of warm waters into old waters never took place.

You sat up most of the time, between my knees, your legs folded impossibly close to your “chests”, or sort of lazily, reclining with our limbs free or layered.

The grey light filtering through the blinds, 30 degrees north then 200 degrees south, 'round the bend onto the left side of your face. You claimed to be able to make out colours in the low-light, the blue in my eyes. All I knew was grey, and darks and covered-whites, delicate hints and faltering hues of lips and areola.

Keeping kept, stretching my neck, up, peaking, straining briefly to see your breasts, as you leaned forward, differentiation or/and/of the trajectory of specific shapes.

I took the pencil out from the water, the graphite was wet and the wood was soft with water, pulp mill. I took the pencil, again, I took the pencil, and with you, I grabbed your shaded arm,
I wrote, “S T I L L  I S” vertically, perfectly, possibly crookedly, and the esses were my favourite shapes to draw.

That being surveyed slowly pulled back with a false effort but relenting you allowed a faint, silt-bleeding calligraphy, my response, a faded message about a pencil still working-- yes, mostly about the efficacy of sorry and soggy writing utensils but also a written acknowledgement of my own continued ability to drown and S T I L L feel bliss.