The river made the sound of audible
Bleeding as it cascaded down levels
Of shale, unleashed from a rent
I’ve torn in the tissues that
Separate the living from the dead
.
Even here in the shadows of waxing
Crescent moon I can’t escape
The metallic reek of heme
Dried to a line of purple-maroon
Lodged in the eaves of my nails
In the darkness blood is the color
Of a bruise
And water is also the color
Of a bruise
If only this river was just water
I wouldn’t have to choose
Between living an ever elaborate lie
And dying straight away
Upon the sharp barb of self-inflicted truth
Every stone I threw was a finger
Too skinny to plug a spurting dike,
A stitch placed in a melting slab of ice
As if sheer will could hold together all
I’d set on the course of destruction
I am the man in winter
Condemned to watch the figures
Trapped beneath the frozen river
Carried away in currents before
I can show them the way out
Here on this tiered stone
I am sentenced to witness
A river roaring from a wound
In the world that I created
It isn’t my water
But the river will always be
Mine to own
10/23/23