Ex—
After a Dream
Now you who hesitate,
fearful of the tomb-smell,
fearful of shades,
look up—higher!
Kathleen Jamie
Swifts
It’s not every day
but often enough
I admonish myself
how much better
I could be if: if it
weren’t winter I’d walk
along the river, but once
I fell there on the ice
and gashed my lip
and felt myself
slip down the small
cliff toward
the river. Nothing
to grab to I just
let myself go
and when I was done
falling laid my cheek
willingly this time
against a stone. Funny
how something like
what makes us makes us feel
like home, no? And though
it wasn’t the one
I slipped on trying
to negotiate the terrain
I had no business being
on with balding old
boots it was one just
like it and it was icy
and cool against my
chagrinned bloody
face. It's made me
hesitate ever since. How
one misstep after going
along and going along
and carefully too, don’t
be fooled, I wasn’t coming
on hell bent for leather
I was careful, I was smooth
and fluid like I’d wanted
to be in the woods, I was.
I was. Right? You saw me?
You did, I know, your back
wasn’t turned when I went
down. You watched me.
When I looked up though
you’d walked on ahead
and were watching
the river instead. How
even in winter it foamed
in the head of it, all that
push from the woods
after a freak February warm
spell. Shit. Anybody
can fall. Anybody. If they
lean the way I did they’re sure
to dip the way I did, too far
one way and all that
confidence slipped, slow
at first, but enough.
And it bit me in the cheek
as I went down. And I stayed
down long enough to see
you walk past the boulder
some glacial fist thrust
there who knows
how long ago. It was
hands and hands taller
than the both of us. It
squatted on the top
of the bank and seemed
to smirk, there was that one
fissure, at the coming, the
going of the water,
the weather, the walkers.
All of it. Not unfriendly,
just honest. And a bit of moss
on its undercarriage. Soft
when I tore some and pressed
it against my lip. Bitter
but not unpleasant.
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