What we share
A love of pinecones. Forgotten swan
feathers, now encased in river ice
not to be confused with your obsession
with ocean ice, temporary and lovely
the sea ice is jagged, the river ice
is soft, a sheet like the ones coated
in summertime sweat, the fan blowing
gently on your exhausted body, you
fell asleep those days without hiding
and even though your mirror reflected
scabs and tributes, it didn’t matter, you
knew the next day we’d be biking to
where the hazelnut snails embedded
themselves in the earth, you laughed
in that way I love, digging up their
bodies and grinning, what’s not lovely
about the marsh bird flying beyond
your head, the richness of soil, ghosts
of shells and organs discarded from
slender slider turtles, add too: that
slow, warm shade of green only present
in nature, and also, your eyes, or is it
not my turn to list, very well then, but
if I were telling the truth for once I’d
say olives, bottom shells, blue crabs,
teeth, eels, crayfish crumbs, coarse
rocks, water in daytime, an otter who
once witnessed me, brilliant blissful
bell spider, maybe someday we’ll see
inia geoffrensis and I’ll be all the way
out of my own heart, already I can tell
that one day we’ll be able to talk about
all this and laugh, I’ll tell you my dreams
and you’ll teach me to catch cichlid on
the diver’s side of the water, we could
go to the ridges and marshes beyond
I’m tired, this river bifurcation is a stem
do you think the water ever closes its
fist, do you think you’ll miss the snow.
Fiction - ISSUE #28