Sharks in the Rivers

We’ll say unbelievable things
to each other in the early morning—

I’ve been walking for a long time,
and it hasn’t made me smarter or faster

I’m chock-full of bad ideas today,
my foul mouth worthy of a good kick.

The song in my head has whiskey in it,
and a back porch full of rusted nails in mason jars.
It sounds nothing like the song in your head.
In fact, that’s the chorus.

(Small brilliant hole in the dark, let me out.)

She is wearing her changeable season, she is shedding light like feathers.

She says not to put the cart before the horse—
the heart before the course.

But when she moves, so much light escapes.

She sends me an article from a recent National Geographic that says,

Sharks bite fewer people each year than
New Yorkers do, according to Health Department records.

Then she sends me on my way. Into the City of Sharks

World, turn all you want to,
faster even. I’ve come to like the way the breeze feels
as it rips me limb from limb.

Maybe not now, maybe not tomorrow,
but this stubborn monster-girl, gone all wrong
with the river’s sledge, is not
giving in to your one-way-ness.