No matter where you go in this town, water
is always within walking distance. Every street
a testament: You cannot remove water from water.
On the Wawa convenience store sign
the Canada goose always flies toward water,
its back aligned with the W’s twin serifs.
The name itself, the first syllable of water,
a start and restart, a hesitation, as if by speaking
the word in full, you might conjure water
where you least want it. Look: some saltwater
bird has built its nest in the second a of the sign,
its round acrylic mouth as hospitable as any watery
cliff or sand dune. The a invites life; the w
sloughs it off: the name, when written, like water.
At high tide, we get our coffees to go
and walk down to the bay. The sound of water
against the seawall, brash and arrhythmic,
as if something underwater
is arching, is aching, to come up for air.
This poem first appeared in Given (Autumn House Press, 2023).
—
Liza Katz Duncan is the author of Given (Autumn House Press, 2023), which received the Autumn House Press Rising Writer Award and the Laurel Prize for Best International First Collection. Her poems have appeared in AGNI, The Common, The Kenyon Review, Poem-a-Day, Poetry, Poetry Daily, and elsewhere. A 2024-25 Climate Resiliency Fellow, she lives in New Jersey (Lenni-Lenape) where she teaches multilingual learners.
