I have heard that 
when a poet falls in love,
It feels like drowning, 
like searching for a immortal grail.
The water becomes a metaphor 
as well as an oxymoron.
Like the shrieking mouth of a mayhem,
It burns and distills.
May be, thats what you did,
Virginia,
May be you fell in love.
You looked at the nails of history, 
growing into a disgusting dome and 
decided to free yourself by
letting the river's languid tongue
lick the stones
of your soul, 
worn smooth as a shingle,
by surrendering to the currents.
In the photographs, 
your eyes are 
two dark pools, 
already brimming with the sea
that would eventually 
claim you, 
a solitude
so profound, 
it became a kind of marriage
to the waves, 
a union of mutual undoing.
The weights in your pockets, 
like two cold eggs,
Like first moon of holy month,
laid by the river's own dark hand,
pulled you under, 
a slow descent into the weedy depths, 
where the water's dumb mouth 
opened wide, a silent scream 
that only the fish could hear:
but ignored.
You pulled yourself down,
down into the dark
where the river's secrets waited,
their lips pressed to your ear, 
whispering the one
truth you'd always known: 
that the only way
to escape the weight of the world is
to let the water
close over your head 
like a dark, velvet cloak.

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