Laren McClung

CONFLUENCE OF RIVERS AND MOUTHS

Today I saw a woman on Spring Street
with two black spaniels. She was crouching
and whispering to them. The dogs
took turns licking the woman on the mouth.
This woman’s mouth was its own world.
There are many worlds. We can enter them.
I read that Frydek-Mistek is a natural gate
into the mountains. One river empties
into the mouth of another. I imagine you
singing your nightingale song back
in D.C. I forget little things. This is a way
of surviving. I make imprints in the snow
in my dreams aggressively, practice
my blues-scales, collapse bridges,
converse with my grandmother, walk
into the water and keep walking.
I don’t know how surviving things can
better me, but I have many secrets.
And secrets, I’m learning, are like sheets,
or a shroud wrapped so tight it seems
impossible to find the opening to get out.

–from Rattle #32, Winter 2009