Steve Levine

Steve Levine is the author of To and For (Coffee House Press), among other books.

CLEAR WATER

Clear water

waiting, waits

to fill the once

full San Pellegrino

Pre-Alp (Italiano)

mineral water bottle,

and to swirl. Clearly,

the water is waiting-

it waits to fill it

greenly as the bottle

is not so strangely

green and intended

for those two new

cut Dutch tulips.

Once they are put

there, clear water

waiting to swirl up

swirls up though just

a few beads enough

to slip the green

bottle lip, and all

of this is meant to sit

all motion, composed, over

there before a print of

Johannes Vermeer's Officer and

Laughing Girl.