Hobble Creek Review
| Andrew Shields |
RIVER
The bridges' pilings cut me
into turbulent whirls. My skin
stings, scraped by the barges' keels,
the ferries, kayaks, canoes.
Brazen above the houses and hotels
whose façades I take and blur,
the sun burns across the ripples
the unheeding winds give me.
The fishermen's gifts—their lines,
lures, bobs, bait—expect return.
The swans give nothing. Eating,
the mallard ducks its green head.
Along the towpath, an uncivil
cloud contests old crusts, at last
dissolves into gulls. Eating
what bread falls to me,
I carry what is given, drown
the too-heavy, the misshapen.
The earth takes me, then
forsakes me, and I join the drowned.
Resurrected, I bleed
from the stabbed sky's wounds.
The bridges' pilings cut me
into turbulent whirls. My skin
stings, scraped by the barges' keels,
the ferries, kayaks, canoes.
Brazen above the houses and hotels
whose façades I take and blur,
the sun burns across the ripples
the unheeding winds give me.
The fishermen's gifts—their lines,
lures, bobs, bait—expect return.
The swans give nothing. Eating,
the mallard ducks its green head.
Along the towpath, an uncivil
cloud contests old crusts, at last
dissolves into gulls. Eating
what bread falls to me,
I carry what is given, drown
the too-heavy, the misshapen.
The earth takes me, then
forsakes me, and I join the drowned.
Resurrected, I bleed
from the stabbed sky's wounds.
Andrew Shields has recently published his second volume of translations of
poems by the poet Dieter M. Gräf, Tussi Research (Green Integer, 2007). He
lives and works in Switzerland.
poems by the poet Dieter M. Gräf, Tussi Research (Green Integer, 2007). He
lives and works in Switzerland.
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