Your Drenched Body

[image from pixabay.com]

Once again I'm doing a MASSIVE send-out of poems, and retiring a few that have, over the years, grown too slight. 

What is it with that? I once considered these poems "good enough" to be in my submit notebook. They've gone out (generously!) to numerous journals. But now I can't seem to find any depth in them. They're like old shirts that have gone thin with too much washing. I hang the poem out on the line one more time, and I can see right through the lines. 

Okay, so here's this. 

Your Drenched Body

Marriage is the barrel they give you
to go over the falls. You're in this

together. You hunch your shoulders
and hope for the best, heads thumping 

against the staves. If you're lucky, air
cushions your drenched body,

if you're lucky, the barrel 
holds, doesn't shatter. In old film reels

that's you -- bobbing and flying.
What you know of your partner

is so slight, only the hand holding yours
in the barrel's dark as you fall. 

-Bethany Reid