Towhead

by Jeremy Marks

I push off from the dock quietly and its brown
end slides away into the morning fog. This coolness
is misleading, shouldn’t the water’s breath be warm?

A heron emerges becoming a stick; I cannot
figure how it got here, what with shore so
far off.

My oars touch the bottom.

Somewhere I heard that you cannot trust your eyes;
that is until I read that the eyes must guide the mind.

Most of the time my fondest wish is embodied
by a small boat crossing something flat and wide
with the mind a towhead.