Ophelia's Drowning Poem by Graham Leese

It simply doesn’t course
through my veins
power a beaten heart
prolong a broken
start. It doesn’t remove
sediment from the cistern,
sweep away fragments
of charred
skin and clinging cuticles
lost in the stream. It’s not
the embolism
in between,
reactions on the cinema screen
quick glances and shoulder brushes,
lust’s sheen. It’s bigger than
internal decryptions and foreign policies,
smarter than the selfish
retorts and pallid
preservation schemes. It’s
the elevation of senses; the pause
as you step between worlds, a shift
in time rippling through your synapses,
the discarded equation smashing through
a thousand mirrors, the rising of the sun,
cold glance of the moon. It’s the
curvature of all things, thicker than
the suffocation of self, the struggle
to part the waves of reality, it's
the beautiful way your love protects me.