The Reservoir

By Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge b. 1947 Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge

The reservoir is trying to freeze over

with an expanding map shaped like an angel

Separated lovers on a coast keep walking

toward each other. Low sun reddens

their faces without heat

They are weary of always moving

so seldom touching, but never think

to move inland, massive and stable

Imagoes hatched on thin ice, it’s

their illusion membranes are brighter

than occluded flesh of interiors

Membranes have the density

of an edge, and edges violent as lava

All day she walked across the tundra

He began to drive away obliquely

at exactly her speed, so she altered

her angle, aiming above him, as in a current

He departed in a zone that solidified

at his whim, so she reached for his hand

Land cracked with their weight. He seemed

to reach toward her, a hand like paper

twisted and folded over, only a surface

with wan modulations, like a map

Then she delicately stepped out

toward the edge, tenuous as a leaf

as if waiting for a letter

but it froze too swiftly before her

At dusk his voice broke her concentration

She turned, vexed, and saw he had not spoken.

Source: I Love Artists (University of California Press, 2006)

Biography

Berssenbrugge was born in Beijing, the daughter of a Chinese mother and an American father who was the son of Dutch immigrants. Her mother was a mathematician, and her maternal grandmother received a college education in prerevolutionary China. Her father was employed at the American Embassy in Chungking, and later pursued Far Eastern studies at Harvard University. Her family moved to the United States when she was a year old. . . .

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