“***” by Zachary Johnson

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***

Love,
an arrow
shot with purpose,
even with sadness, an artist’s
string, sadness.
Who is that reeling
in the river
of love? The one drifting
in birch bark. Oh she is a funny woman,
no one recalls
her name. Let me say something,
between you and me,
she is under a spell,
locked to the river, whimpering,
floating away
from the people. The people
are busy
building fires, flaming flesh seasoned in
mint and wild
onions, on the banks
of the sad river, the river without
memory.

When I was a child I knew that
woman from within
the river. She was, to me, like a dream
drowned in real
water;
her black hair held answers
to questions
I would only ask
later, dying through the middle
of life; her white canoe
was always afloat
in my mind. I called to her
from the mud shore
with joy. I called to her
before I could speak: in tongues
of pleasure,
with gurgling sounds
of love.

-Zachary Johnson

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