With a line borrowed from Jack Spicer

When you start remembering
what’s forward and what’s back,
above water or below, bobbing
wildly or drowning, dear, you may
comprehend whether you’re simply
that otter adrift in the poem
or the poet lost
in the labyrinth and left
to your own heroic devices,
as if there’s a difference, as if
it may matter. They’re both something
supernatural, balanced on the edge
of the world, beyond anything superficial
upon the well-blessed waves, out past
the riptide, free from sun-ripened seaweed.
Tread water, love, or continue to float
like a dead man enlightened. Begin swimming
toward shore, or head further out – the choice remains
yours to make or refute, if you remember.