Approaching the Delta 

We shall find peace. We shall hear angels.
We shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds.
—Anton Chekov
 
​
  
I want to be there when mourning doves
glide above the river, downstream where
 
leaves and branches snare on rocks, where
deer hesitate to go further. I want to be
 
there when this war ends, and the next,
where under cover of trees we touch
 
the wind with our nakedness. When there
are no words left, only emptiness angular
 
with hope, I want to be there. The rush
of us, dense thighs and arms entwined,
 
the world grown dark, water the only
continual. Bodies buried nameless, the
 
quiet after; the named restless still. I
want to be there, near the crookneck,
 
where water eddies, glides past in
spirals, like the fingerprints of those gone,
 
left to memory and statistics, their
voices snagged in branches overhead,
 
speaking little of fallen matter, but of
water carried downstream with remnants
 
of winter, of the swift lure of salt right
before the river becomes something else.





Published in Rattlesnake Review