‘Planning for Time’

Shall we go west? Can you find me that rattlesnake I almost walked right into because I was looking down, concentrating too much on the one-two one-two of my feet headed toward the Devil’s River, water, respite, the complete change of being that swimming holes in the desert always offer? Or shall it be the ditch, the intracoastal waterway, passing tugs pushing barges, the pleasure boat Urchin churning toward Espíritu Santo Bay, a little lift in my heart every time you say it, even though I know what it will mean for this Yankee girl: bugs and heat and stinging jellyfish, superb languor, occasional dustups, and renewed surprise each time I forget that alligators swim these salt waters? To live in it. Breathe all in, out. To long for. Anticipate.

To hesitate in the not-quite-there-yet, so that we have not too quickly been there already.

Jane Creighton is a poet, essayist and professor of English at the University of Houston-Downtown. Her second collection of poems, “Bone Skid, Bone Beauty” (Saint Julian Press), is due Sept. 1.

Poetry editor: Jim LaVilla-Havelin