March 27, 2022
Sometimes the lake sits so still it looks like glass. A two-way mirror we only see one side of. The ripples reaching out towards the shore are shallow breaths barely breaking the surface. I walk slowly toward the last dock — the one hidden behind the boathouses, and think about being a child here. Still, even now, I step so carefully on my way to the water’s edge, eyes darting from side to side, scanning the path for snakes who, in summer, wound their way atop flat stones and stretched themselves out, as we did on wood, laying long and languid, limbs splayed beggingly beneath the day’s sun. Remember, my mother would say, in the face of our persistent fear, they are more scared of you than you are of them.
