sometimes it is better to not say.

"i was frightened 

by my fearlessness 

to drown in everything"

...

so you changed your number who's calling

If I have gotten to know any river, it would be the river of mud and clay where fish died on its bank every year and we could still wade in ankle-deep and catch crayfish and I almost always fell in but when you are five six seven eight that is okay wet pants are not a problem, I remember crayfish murky between river grass and water spiders we could skip stones forever but I couldn’t really skip mine all of the time just my dad, laughing as his went further, as his skimmed the river tops and the dog my dad’s dog splashed and swam and crawled up the banks even as they crumbled we did that, too, crawled up and down the banks and built forts in the ravine that tumbled down to the river it was always a race to the bottom a race along the edges we caught frogs and played with matches and my uncle would push me on the swings and we’d sit in that big metal cage pretending it was a spaceship pretending we were going to go really far, we were going to fly the hell out of there but in the end, we always came back to the river, it was our center, and I would get my feet wet climbing to a tiny island I found, I would go by myself and I would climb through the reeds and pretend I was on an adventure, pretend I was writing a poem, pretend I was all alone in my own country far away from dad’s who said playing in the ravine alone/without him wasn’t allowed who tried to take away all of the things a river brings, like mud pies and swimming, like new pets for home and birds, like things to take pictures of and talk about, we’d slap sticks on the water and walk against the current up to our waist to feel dangerous and strong but it really wasn’t that deep and the dog was always there, anyway I always thought she’d save me but she was still my dad’s dog so who knows - there were lots of trees on the banks some of them had roots that left land looking for better places to live and then had given up, half way across and the best part about the river about any river is that the water is always moving there is nothing still about it and anyway, later we left grew up in a different city surrounded by water but where definitely most definitely you could not wade in and my dad’s dog died so it seemed unlikely that, after all, that he might ever call us again, now that we were living in a different city with a different river, one that had smoke stacks and blue collars piled on all sides and anyway, all the men around me had pitbulls with chokers and because my dad’s dog was half-pitbull I already knew there wasn’t anything there to be afraid of so at least I had the dogs and that almost seemed like it could have been enough, I could hold them and touch their fur and they seemed nice and they mostly liked me and I had seen pitbulls before so what did I have to be afraid of?

Landslide

We spent the whole morning in here climbing up roots
and pulling breath out, one card trick to another and laying down stone
as we sidestepped stone; here, it is easier to step without thinking without
trying to understand how one rock compares to another
how one step might leave you hanging, holding nothing but uprooted
air in your hands. It’s easier not to think.

Geology never thinks. Geology leaves rocks scattered and then comes back
to take more, to lay down a heavy, tired heat and to turn water
from stone, geology is a language of its own. It can hardly weep
and yet, look at the river go.  How the river turns and looks upon itself,
always moving forward but curving back in final thought, the last twist
of trying to say something other than good bye

If these rocks could speak, the dirt would fall loose the way teeth do in dreams
little white pebbles filling a great black cave the language of geology
dark in the mouth, leaving  just enough space for air to oxidize and yet
not enough space to breathe

The way a secret gets spoken to the trunks of trees all standing in a circle
but goes nowhere
and the wind that turns the leaves is that same wind that carries the spark
and starts the fire. 

in winter, everything sleeps

Tap. Tap. Tap. My foot. The water. There are expectations.
I cannot move from the couch. The window creaks in the winter ice.

There is movement where I am not moving.
Wake up wake up wake up. A river caked in its own weight.

Heat through the gas makes the metal expand. It pops.
I close my eyes tighter and hug my arms around my breasts.

By now the trees are asleep, life support limited to slow supply.
If I breathe slowly, I can feel all three feet of snow on my chest.

There are grey streaks in the black and the white on the ground looks less.
I turn on every light I pass by on the way to the bedroom.