the river spoke
to me once; one
morning when the
blackbird paused –
in song, i heard it with
grit in its teeth words
stuck in my mouth
like salt on seashells.
close my eyes and i
am in the liminal
space between
land and water,
in the mill where
the past lives.
there is a vessel here,
an eel with one hundred
slippery legs
Flossie has her.
venetian blue steel
eyes undulating hips
kinked like oxbow lakes.
can’t you see Her at midnight –
flesh like silk coiled around
the turbine. if we turned
the river inside out there
would be bones. words
decomposed fragmented
memories lost to the water.
Amber Spalding