River Queen • You’d Like To Keep It Casual / Preview of A Slasher
On a day I am walking with my cane
in Starbucks
the lady behind me inquires,
from her wheelchair,
if I am recently disabled.
How is this open to interpretation?
When the track number appears
next to the name of my train,
I wait a couple of minutes,
avoid the stampede of impatients
—it is always the end of the day
when I limp
into sight & shuffle
towards that uncomfortable space.
Would you have me
confine my slow pace
to the elevator?
I descend
upon the track
a step at a time,
slow the peak of rush, at my back,
to a hush.
My pain occupies space
and I lean into it,
my hips preventing
even the skinniest
from floating past
—my ache
has shushed the river
of royal subjects
who slow their breaths
to the grunt of my scepter.
If I were to look back
and cast a glance,
who would turn to stone?
The last step welcomes me
like a cement throne
O, the footsteps know
you cannot stop the river
and this is what I tell her:
Stop is open to interpretation.
1.
Before you undo my bra
I must admit
I am dead
There is time for all of it
What is saidWhat is shedWhat is read
I must admit she won
the breakup
in the final cut
The throat is not the instrument
but the venue,
I say
as you untie my scarf, kiss
the braided scar across my neck
I’m sorry to tell you
the dead do not return for love
though, here we are
I had a choice
when she took me
from behindandslashed
—to travel North of the body,
but (inside) on the river,
I travelled down—
Is it a second life
if what kept me anchored
were the last words she said?
2.
On the river that grew dark and slow,
I met a boy named Brood
whose eyes gleamed darkness,
whose mouth, too
No words, just song,
I gurgled my solo tune
O, how I have failed
Notes splattered against the wall,
my song spilling blood
across my breast
I must admit I didn’t see God in the room.
Above me, only darkness
Below, me and Brood
As I lay dying
the fibers from the carpet
conducting the truth
about the doors that close and open
There is time for reconciliation now:
What you choose to believe
is up to you,
but I need you to hear
Before,
when I fell backwards into the throes of love
I did not know
my suffering was not
the surplus of the body,
but of the soul.
3.
A woman,
trailing a boy,
following a river
I remember, two moons
and Brood’s bald scalp,
which read:
The bud does not fail to bloom
but the white scythe of logic
assumes…
Until you’ve climbed the river
North of reason
with your Brood,
don’t speakthe wordforgiveness
in my ear.
At the end of the river
was a well and Brood sailed back South
softer than he came
and I hungered
not for the pail of love,
but the rope of language.
Edited by Bretty Rawson.
The featured image is "Dark Water Fade Out" by Chad Cooper.
