Notes Left for the Ohio River to Read After It Tells Me It Has Forgotten Its Source
La source est roc et la langue est tranchée.
—René Char
char said, roc. like rauque. as to begin
with the damming obstacle. as to begin hoarse
as a spirit shouting back to its body from the grit
of another bank.
——
yes i saw you
flood & forget the fish
when the rains stopped.
you receded, let high noon hand
their bodies to the pavement:
sediment, ceramic.
can i trust you to dredge up
the elegant bones?
——
when i ask your name,
your tongue
severs, speaks two:
on one edge: the flayed back,
the child clawed from mother’s breast,
the life tallied a stock.
on one edge: out of waters’
shadow body, a body;
a recovered birth; a mouth
prodding dangerous language:
my self my self my self.
——
i speak my name back to you:
cold-boned thankless.
girl southborn
but wearing her own skin,
& then wearing her body
out of it. split, as water
from bank:
at birth
i was blessed with a self
& in life
i laid waste to it.
i: whatever fool beast
starves
on purpose. echo
invoking an invented
division,
straining
to free the body
of the body
where the body
was free.
——
(imagine: knowing the self a flood & not the flood-
ravaged house it was named,
& beating the currents back, & the cottonmouths,
& wagering breath to flow towards it—)
——
what has a metal language made of us
your source might be: roc. like roc.
whose virtue is to know its own
before, & be it, & be absolved by it:
if we are lucky,
it might be found
if the split tongue scars
whole under the balm
of its own christening
——
we practice:
river, spelled:
tides that still to listen
when the blackbirds sing
woman, spelled:
body of element—
bronzeskin the sun
nuzzles scorchless bright;
hair of mist-lush
black nimbus
river, spelled:
autumn waters spilling
to feed the sunspun corn
woman, spelled:
i breathe. i breathe. i breathe.
& something flows
feverish in me
river, spelled:
swift-pumping vein,
long blue seam, a unity,
untorn, sprouting
towards the sleeping fault line,
——
where rock,
too long weighted
with false name,
will crack
a continent’s bones
to be free.
Source: Poetry (January 2022)