the rushing of the falls
is everything but captivity.
i focus on the wet ledge as the water
churns and curves its dangerous peace,
always over itself,
on its way towards the gravity.
i want to hold.
i see it falling, i see the swole precipice hinge
and laugh as it stands along the curve.
i get scared of its continual plunge,
i understand it and do not have words for it,
the water is always of one piece, it is at rest
as it steadily abandons its higher rivers
for the peace of innumerable speed.
i hear its deafening shush and my heart pounds.
my mother wraps an arm over my shoulder and across
my neck, as i will my future lovers
in their woe and joy,and my fear becomes
a bottom where rivers will land.
when i breathe there is water,
and i can hear the light skip across
the corners of the falls,
it has a drum that spreads and sprays with
such abandon. when i am scared now i think of this.
i am the light in the river as it falls.
i am held only by that which might catch me
in the peace of innumerable speed.

don’t you ever
do that while
driving
the sun

has no fenders

when the sun drives

by the time we see it

its last breath

is its first

and us
left breathing

the planets exhaust

stickle shrewdly
to its crashing

as it grinds our glass
into sand,

and we see it calmly

from beyond control

wrapped in our
skins of our skins.

here’s to the shine in the bottom of the street!