Cannot manage
but a mile
before I must
stop and search,
remove all
water from the river
and walk among suspended
life—dry, eternal, fixed
above me.
Maybe it is greed.
Maybe it is emptiness.
And the more miles traveled
the greater the sense
of having lost,
forgotten.
And it becomes harder
to go back, the retrieval
more precarious, the longing
more complete.
It cannot be recovered,
though I walk upon the back
of the wide fish
in the dark silence,
in the heat.
Reluctantly pushed forward,
I look ahead until
the weight of the river,
the hunger,
the sureness of having missed,
of having forgotten,
makes me stop
once more
and blindly
place my hands
in the water,
searching
for something hard.
And when finding it,
holding on.
