Ballast

We’re on the banks of Lake Winona
—watching a canoe move, serenely—
when the Frugal Traveler says:

You’re what keeps a canoe steady. 
Ballast. So it doesn’t tip or spin,
if the wind picks up.

Oh? You mean like insensate gravel
or iron or lead in a ship’s hold
or the sand or water that zeppelins

carry to keep them steady?
What can be jettisoned as needed?
A bare load. But funny, that is

what we are for each other
& think how ballast stabilizes
the current of a transformer. 

Think about light, even
a fluorescent, pushing away
darkness, going hum hum—