Refraction

Light breaks its body against the surface, each ray bent into a stranger's path— the sun doesn't reach straight down, it dances, hesitates, arrives changed.

Below, the water holds its breath. Shadows bloom like bruises. Things are never exactly where they seem: the pebble sits inches deeper, your hand, reaching, always misses by the width of a lie.

And still we look. We lean over edges, squinting at the wavering world beneath, unable to accept that clarity is just another form of absence.