puddle

by Christopher Phelps

Originally diminutive
of ditch, it clung

to lagoons and pools

as well, which,

to me, is a happy,

humble hold:

this little lake

a pond,

a luke-cold puddle
to ponder on—or in,

water, a nervous waiter.
Water, I know you

stagnate without moving

through peoples and pebbles,

through the glimmer of springs

and the glamour of worms,

through drafts and drifts through

the valves and vaults of Earth,

the salt and sedge of Earth,

the wide-eyed sky of Earth.

Airth, I start to hear it as;
start to want to call it.

After days of rain,
who knows

why words cease
and wrens sing

and prayer bows
from the preposter

all the way to us,
just now, rinsing off

time’s line—turns to fill

a hole into a shape

of water—whole
as any other.

Christopher Phelps is a queer, neurodivergent poet living in Santa Fe where he teaches math, creative problem-solving, and letteral arts. He is searching for others who think poetry can be equal parts vulnerable and subversive communication. His poems have appeared in Poetry Magazine, Palette Poetry, Beloit Poetry Journal, The Kenyon Review, Zoeglossia, and The Nation. A chapbook, Tremblem, was privately printed in 2018. Details can be found at www.christopher-phelps.com/poetry.