Tattle 

Janet Biehl

Taylor Byas

When I say that water

gives us away, 

this is what I mean—

that I can trace your years

through the dried

runnels and splotches.

Your most tender days,

when the street artist

dappled your embrace

with old watercolors and

alley-water, the yellow

of the corner’s lamppost

light browning at the edges

like toast. And ten

years later, when your grandchild

pressed spit into the red

of the night, 

deepening the dye cradling

your husband’s head. And last

year, when your tears

rewet his suit jacket, drops

cauliflowered out to blue-grey

bursts, just like his

cancer in its final stages.

When I say that water

gives us away, 

this is what I mean—

that like pain, it dries and

becomes wet again,

leaves one mark, and then another.