Absence

They say you shouldn’t swim

if you can’t see the bottom of

the lake. Four steps out and

fog below the surface.

You respond in kind with murk.

An earthen appellation?

Cannot be called the same

as what’s in water.

And what will you call me, darling,

as I slip beneath the sheen?

My toes which feel the slime

you’re clearly convinced

we should not touch?

My chancing Neptune’s

cleansed it all

with purging breath?

Air is not the air that’s under the grade.

Where the stones which you will skip

are currently lodged.

What rests upon the beach

was tossed in another time.

A girl in her bathing

dress. Her brother’s torso draped 

like you wish they’d do today—

the day I’ll surely join them,

on that shore we’ve sung in church.

I think you name me Absence

as I push myself away,

like a ship that’s just been

dubbed with Château-Gris.

My eyes absorb the “clouds”

which cannot be, spy cobble that

your great-great-great-great grandad

may have hurled, on a Sunday

afternoon in which

the sky laid bare its pith,

its party-pooper sobs

in lieu of light.

Andreas Gripp

September 4, 2026

photograph: Jason Van't Padje