~DOUG RAMSPECK~

WATERBORNE

---

The long scar of clouds
above the river
where we are waterborne

and carried off
like voles
in the red-tailed hawk's

talons, reminds me
of the vigil of stars and moon
when we're asleep,

of Lorca's black sounds
and living flesh
asserting themselves

as duende above
the present, as though
the water moving beneath us

is as fleshless and elemental
as the possum skull
we found last summer

bleached white
in the buttonbushes,
its long rows of teeth locked

in an otherworldly grimace,
as pale as the dulled scab
of retreating sun dusting

the river's surface
where our black tubes
transport us as living tissue

excised from a blood wound
beneath this twilight
of slow-moving clouds.

 
 

© by Doug Ramspeck