by John Riley
I. Boyhood
What’s fucked up in this poem
stays fucked up.
The image is the hardest
to make come.
Plow slicing a furrow in a shadow
that becomes
the dream inside a garden.
It’s now the worms
turn over
in a final earthworm
free-for-all.
II. Middle Age
I once held a river crooked
in my hands.
Took two turns at the canyon
gaped beyond.
Felt every dance of the gelding
I found dead.
Where are you, my
cold-toed girl?
Tonight my crowd stands
in the rain
to enter and reenter
a sequence
of lessons learned and asking
this journey
about the next.
WILLOWS WEPT REVIEW 