River Bride
There’s a continent inside our bodies
built from the attar of Eve, a small boat in the river
of our veins & a burned-out church at the fourth fold
in the wrist. We must honor the rib that bears
the raw glow of use, the oar propelling us to an event
for which we’re improperly dressed. The flames
marrying the cattails at the water’s edge & the moths breaking
free at the broken places. All we’re trying to do is forget
where we’re going. We desire a fogged
mirror. A row of empty pews, begging our discovery.
Any metaphor to thwart the factual aspect
of death. The same is true in the child’s game. A mouth’s
compulsion to choose truth requires but a mild push
from the dock, a chipped tooth, yet we load our boats
with remnants of our own failed harvests & admit the fire
does more than keep us warm. The gospels tell me
I lived because God once grabbed evening
by the scruff & declared the world his lover. Women
fleeing the abbey to inspect the injuries of small children
blooming in the streets, as if God believed wounds
were anything other than a tarnished ring in the pocket.
& the women did this, why? When a girl returned
to the aged river to hold her skeleton to the light,
she’d know something of this world was gentle.