Eros the Binder and Loosener

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A ripple in the lake — Photo by Oleg Kryzhanovskyi on Unsplash

There was a black reflecting pool in the center of the garden.

Guarding it, a pair of lion statues at the top of the steps, looking down.
Pink azaleas gone frothy by the pool’s edge, then tiers of boxwood, pines—

I know because of the photographs, my attempts to take.

Something in the water let it be both black and reflective.
Staring into it, almost touching the glossy surface, all I could see was water:
no sign of my hovering face, only depthless, witchy satin.

But everything far away—all of it was held there, no loss of color or shape.
And when the wind shook the tall pines, their image in the water shook.

Talking to a friend tonight, her face half in shadow, her voice
slipping unevenly down the rocks, I feel how easy it is
to fall in, how dark and sweet this water is, all the light it contains.

Annie Kim

is the author of Into the Cyclorama, winner of the Michael Waters Poetry Prize (Southern Indiana Review Press, 2016). Her poems have ap- peared in journals such as Kenyon Review, Pleiades, Four Way Review, Ninth Letter, and Crab Orchard Review. A graduate of Warren Wilson’s MFA program, Kim is the recipient of residencies from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and the Hambidge Center. She serves as an editor for DMQ Review and works at the University of Virginia School of Law as the assistant dean for public service.

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