by Caitlin Thomson
The river is a flood. This pressure,
a city filling with its own emptiness
till I am nothing, till I am a reed,
a boat, a man’s tongue.
Willows once swayed in a funeral for me.
The water separates this side of Manhattan
from Brooklyn, that is all I know right now,
the line of water, the salt in it.
I walk the outer path of the island,
the cars cutting between me and the city,
a park of narrowness, but still I want
to know the name of everyone who drives away.
All the desires I can feel, chirping like birds,
a whole land of longing that I want in a small
way only, my pennilessness
a bubble I understood once, that I required,
and now do not. If only the fish could intervene,
provide for me a meal, a stable moment in a day,
that did not lurch into orange,
into the echoes of traffic, water.
[Check out Caitlin’s backporch wisdom here]
