“Cold Lake” by Jason O’Toole

Hold your bones against the wash
All your currents open
Chest deep, northern waters
Cold lake waves numb
Sunburned shoulders
& Black fly bites

Pebbles under toes
Painlessly smooth
Sparkle when wet
Gloomy once dried
Disappointingly so

The silent appearance of a loon
Come to claim the bream
Darting past your knees
Impossibly long she submerges
Reappearing beyond the dock

To the Iroquois she was a witch
Off limits to hunt
& besides,
They never had much of a taste
For gamey loon meat

Fearless of you
She shares her lake
Not that you gave her a choice
After sundown
She’ll share her voice
Beckoning her mate

Now is the silence
Before that long, forlorn note
That transforms sounds into music

Cold lake waves receive your bones
All your channels open

Jason O’Toole is the author of two collections of poetry, Soulless Heavens (2019) and Spear of Stars (2018), both from The Red Salon. His poems are included in An Anthology of Poems from The Red Salon (2018) and We’ve Seen the Same Horizon (2019). He has also been featured in Nixes Mate Review, The Scriblerus, Tigershark and countless underground fanzines dating back to the 1980s. He performs with Providence based composer-musician, Alec K. Redfearn.