The River Cloud

On paper, on the sky, on the river’s mad meniscus

I’ve drawn a blank

Remaindered against the banks, pressed there by the current

The river dispersing into the light gray

Cloud me down by the river edged with willow

The smoke of the river cloud canticles

A thought river between shores leads out and out

River draw all this through me

What’s hidden beneath the hull of the boat

Or in the cloud of the river

Future river feeding

The charts are no good

The far shore disappears

Give it to me now to live

In the river’s unmaking epoch

Locking itself into the oars

Onto the boat my cloud

Boat my body

Body my oar

Oar and fog

Fog oar rowing

Cloud oar rowing

The River Cloud appears in The Far Mosque (Alice James Books, 2005).