a mamaist stalker

one day she comes into view
and you're stunned--
suddenly everything you do

is like swimming against 
the current--you don't 
get anywhere,
or seem to.

silence is one answer.
only the game can't be played
that way,
so

you up and marry, 
have a child,
move far from home, still
dumbstruck, still
searching for the right
words, going nowhere, it seems, until

many years later with family
in tow, you're at a pool in town
where everyone's making their rounds,
circling with the tide, round
and round--some swimming, some walking,
some playing, some sinking...

when a man appears, some would say
unlike the others, a little different, going
where everyone else is coming from,
circling effortlessly 

against the current, round and 
round, passing you
by so often you barely even notice he's there until
he sails right out into

another future, entirely
unimagined by you before, 
and in that instant it's toward
where he's already gone, where
he doesn't speak anymore, that you're going, you realize, 
unstoppable,
stalking your prey,
reading your way

into the still waters 




Botsford, Alan. mamaist: learning a new language. Kamakura, Japan, Minato No Hito, 2002.