Overflow

Somewhere up the street, out of sight, someone
has left the irrigation siphon open again.

Now, far down, I dip my hand in the stream
and press my palm flat against the concrete gutter.

The water tugs cool and dark on my forearm,
and through it I see my fingers flecked with light,

sand swept along and sifting through them.
A dry leaf bobs past, clinging so completely

to the water’s skin that its top is entirely dry; it rises
seamlessly around the solitary mountain

island that is my wrist, ascending.
I think of the irrigation manager somewhere

up the street, distracted – chatting with a neighbor,
having a smoke, or simply absorbed

in watching what he has released: the play of light
on ripples, roving deep in the bottomless dark

water at the mouth of the siphon – and I wonder
if it is better to think of the Creator as like him, or as more

like this swift-loosed flood, a selfless rush bubbling
up irretrievably to overflow.