Tagged: the Water

Jump the River

watching kids play
Jump the River, which
is a game with two ropes

the kids line up, then
run at the “river”
& jump across it

each time the river
gets wider until the kids
are barely able to make it

some run their hardest then
stop abruptly at its edge
some throw their bodies &

roll for extra distance
some just cry –
too hard, no fair

later they will wade in
the creek. its banks
move apart like ropes

the water flow lessens
some of it abruptly stops
it gets warmer

the sunlight reaches lower &
blooms the algae
the tadpoles feel the urgency

the tepid water tells them
hurry up, get eaten
or get caught & held

their instruments still in
perfect spiral
our eyes take time to adjust

to decide if we are heading
towards, or away
either way we fall into it

then drop it
will we get word?
will it be fire? monsoon?

will we throw our bodies?
or stop abruptly
at its edge?

SWAT

woke up drenched again, not
dreams, not raining
who knows

there’s a resiny
imprint of me
on my mattress, myself laid
down over countless
others, like days

I go through what I ate, when
the withdrawal symptoms of
things like caffeine
pot, what I’m wearing
sleep positions, if
I should have showered

maybe my mattress is a valley
my blankets roads
I overheat, sweat
become cold, pull them up

to wake unsure
where the water came from
if it’s water at all, or
just salt

if while sleeping, I’ve
been swimming, and
barely made it back

Its Parallel Existence

Formerly of love appears
on grainy 90s television
She takes down my shorts by the pool
Her mouth is full of ice, if I remember, or
I tried to run

I remember my first kiss. I wiped it away
I remember I peed on a girl’s foot in line
to the diving board. If I saw her today, I’d maintain

it was dripping water, formerly
of ice, that it was unseasonably cold that day
not too cold

               Snow untwisted from the curtain
Duck, dinosaur, contagion fused together
We had to get out of the pool
There is no end, it seems, to these
lines that never touch

Why Some People Make It

I feel the weight
of a very large decision
left open to me, like
a container in the snow

I lie to a park ranger about
the temperature back home. 110 degrees!
You lie to an old lady about
how long we watched a flip-flop
flip in the glacial rapids, caught
in a whirlpool, not emerging. At least an hour!

Persistence, I point out. Arbitrarily
pointed persistence
Here, you say, passing me a stone
feel how smooth

Fish Gardens

those fish were caught by men
with their feet in water
those fish were caught by men
with their feet on land

in the middle, a couple of babies
pose for their wedding pictures
her dress is lumpy, leguminous
like it is actually cauliflower
his has a pocket for his phone

everything outside their body
is light. literal, actual light
light is decided upon in the brain
the brain is a folded leaf

this is can turn into anything
imagine we are fish swimming
in a man made water system
never have the edges to things
been more clear

Poem for Someone Who Died

i put on my rain jacket, boots, roll
up my pants, step outside

i see myself in the window
of my dead neighbor’s house

now that his front wall has been knocked down
i can see more – the beggar’s lice, the

packages lying in its burrs like dogs
i see myself in the rain, too

how each wet streak is at a loss
for the likeness of those around it

how they explode, reach in all directions
run off together.

the construction workers pull
a tarp over their wood. they fire

the last few nails from their nail guns
it sounds as though there is knocking

on all of the houses. someone
is in each doorway saying

here. i saw this
and i thought of you

Frances

If you were like this all the time
I could stay, she said. I had just thrown
her body across the kitchen island
proceeded to kiss her everywhere
through her clothes
through her self

There is a thin layer of self
over everything. Plastic sheeting
covers whole neighborhoods. Hordes
of caution-taped men, marauding
Our skin the banks of a river

I remember going days
without drinking. I crawled out
to the river’s island, where the water
was clear and fast-moving, and I
let the water pour into my open mouth
My partner, who had gone

the same number of days
took out his knife and cut a stalk
of bamboo from the bank
He filled it up and stabbed
a hole in the bottom, to drink
from the steady drip

He did not trust what his body
wanted, which is everything,
which is to already have done
what is needed to do

Fish Could Mean a Thing to Say

it makes more sense
to pave
just two strips of driveway

or to drive on the lawn
repeatedly. one of my neighbors
threw a bunch of beer cans
down

and drove over those
now it’s flat, glinting
like scales
off a gut fish. they still add to it

a few Coors a night
during winter. sitting around
the campfire, cooking perch
the smell of a tree’s
tense changing

and i find it hopeful
that even
in this day
and age

there are still
hazardous settlers
we must burn
off our meat

and fish
to trick out of water
with string

This Whole Port City is a Boat…

… and the moon is looking
for stowaways. I hear
the white noise of water
the roaring of men’s stomachs
and blood that are lost to our ears
until found again, somewhere new
a captain listens to land
after months on the sea
the taverns creak on top
the gulls divide up
merchant ships and a careful
propeller of lighthouse light
swings, gaining speed. If light
were to leave our Earth somehow
it would do so like this; in a
slingshot before separating
at the sharp edge of space
my fingers have also separated
in the hair of pretty girls
at the edge they dissipate
it is all I can do to remember
their faces – two eyes, a nose
a mouth. I have forgotten
their sounds. I have nearly forgotten
the wine I stole and slipped
into my jacket sleeve. I walk
along the vessels, gargling
unable to christen them all
I find it familiar that boats
are made for water, but
built on top of the land