Rapture of the Deep

RAPTURE OF THE DEEP

                             by,

         David E. Reiser



Light of my life. Desire of my loins. My sex. My soul. Lolita

Vladimir Nabokov



I.

I smile at her,

Overcome with ecstasy.

I watch her disappear,

Shimmering and turning translucent

As she swims away from me.

In my vision,

She grows smaller and smaller,

Diffusing into birefringent fractals,

Dissolving into the sea.

She is swimming away from me.



She undulates in

The currents’ rise and fall

Gently they lift her,

Coldly they sink her down.

I have to smile,

Dazzled in these final moments,

Unable to forget her beauty.

But in the end, she will leave no trace.

In the end, we never do.



Only the ocean lives on,

Rising and falling,

Pierced with shafts of light

Descended from the surface

Of our memories,

Or what we imagine those memories must have been.

She will never be again;

Perhaps she never was at all,

Deep in shades of aquamarine,

Her tiny body flutters

As she turns one final time 

To blow a farewell kiss to me

And then is gone.



II.



You may ask:

“And was it really worth it, after all,

To die like this?

And I will say,

“Oh, yes! Oh, yes!

The agony of loss is when we love our best.

I never loved her more

Than the day I watched her swim away from me.”



I tried to blow one final kiss to her,

But by now I was too weak.

I floated emptily,

Drifting in the delicate, waggling fingers

Of the sea anemone;

And when I knew for certain

That she was gone,

I filled my lungs with the sea

Knowing that I had never been as happy

As I was when I was with her;

Never so at peace

Never again to be that free.