Light Refracting

Water holds the sunlight differently, bends it into cathedrals of amber— a thousand fractures where there should be one. Beneath the surface, everything wavers, solid things becoming negotiable.

I watched a coin sink slowly through the blue, its edges softening like a secret told too many times, the truth worn thin by retelling. The world above still bright and sharp and unbroken.

What we see depends on the angle of entry, the thickness of what lies between. A dragonfly skates across the film, its legs dimpling the mirror, and I cannot tell if it's escaping into air or being born into reflection.

The water remembers every surface it has held— the moon, the clouds, the hands that cupped it. Everything that falls through changes shape. Everything that rises breaks the light into a thousand smaller truths.