If you don’t know, you don’t;
nothing else to be said. It doesn’t matter
if you don’t have a memory of it;
it’s the same as not knowing.

Years ago, I wrote a line
that included the phrase, “an arc —
the flick of a cigarette across
the water,”

and I woke up thinking of that line.
If you don’t know, you don’t;
I still hold to that. But sometimes,
there is a burbling to that pond;

things rise up and tumble back down.
I don’t recall the lines I paired that with,
but I paired it, yes I did; I did indeed.
Somewhere within, it stays lit.

I sit for hours thinking of that cigarette
arcing out across the black pond.