At the Edge of the Mississippi
After years of watching a brick-lined horizon,
I returned to the river’s tattered body, listened
for a murmur to surface, to remind me
that hope once abandoned can be regained.
There were no flowers along the riverbank,
no ducks resting in the mud, only a shadow
cast by the highway overpass and some crows
scurrying about the sidewalk for crumbs.
What might have been a prayer
was a boat gurgling in the distance,
and the murky water veiled those pleas
the history books obscure as when numbers
steal prisoners’ names. I waited to see
if spirits would make themselves known
in the metronome of water carving land,
but the river remained a river, nothing more.
I scooped a handful of sand, rubbed it
between my palms until they chafed.
I held a stone like ice to my lips and sank
my feet into the silt until they numbed.
I wish I could say the gestures changed me,
or that the city was made whole for a moment
by this act of veneration, in my willingness to hold
the river as a sacramental in a penitent’s hand.
Turning from the water, I saw a police caravan
block several downtown streets without fanfare.
The silence spread its smoke between buildings
and clung to my skin a stench I could not shake.
