What water touches becomes clean.
Touched water becomes impure,
it is purest between heaven and earth.
There is no pure water in Savoy because
there is no pure water
that touches lips before it touches earth.
The same rain that
falls in Vevey falls in La Tour falls in Narbonne,
yet water collects what gathers it, what holds it.
Gentle water trickles soft and consistent,
irrevocably carves granite. Water is
unchanging, but the container is not, its salt is not.
Lower still, stalactites drip liquid silt,
build calcium icicles
unfound in caverns for eternity,
but I found for you this distortion—
look at the towers,
look how they fall.
Judy Leserman (she/ her) is a writer living in New York. She is a current MFA candidate in poetry at George Mason University, where she is a 2023 Cheuse Center International Writer Fellow. In addition to her studies, Judy works as the editorial coordinator for Poetry Daily and as a speech-language pathologist.