I
The legends say a cowboy
-seven feet tall
stumbled upon this lake
after sundown. He was walking
through the sagebrush,
the pollen laughing in the air,
when his boot filled with water.
When he awoke, the sun
was on top of him, hot as a searing brand,
so hot that he seemed trapped
in a shimmering wave,
his body the heart
of the mirage.
II
A solitary man of science
in the year 1899, was on his way
to the California coast
when he found K-418, Lea Lake,
a mystery. If the math didn’t lie,
the lake magnified each morning,
(8:09am) gaining depth, as a body
grows an inch overnight.
When the moon lapped at the waters,
you could find him there,
on a square barge,
letting down a rope forty-four knots long:
a brain stem.
O how he wanted to enter the black
with that rope. Then he would know!
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