SHARK REEF

she cuts her feet on bones of the river
crimson pools on long glacial slide
of moss crusted boulders tipped
on broken pieces of themselves
teal ochre bronze bright bed of jewels

The slump and twist, the sag and pooling,
the edges of bone that steam reveals.
So this is what I will look like at eighty.
And perhaps they are thinking: so this is what

A saint swings frantically,
flinging her blessings across the bus.

I try to ask the woman next to me,
about the loaves she carries

and she thinks I want to buy them all.

The creek here does not fail at the height of summer.
It’s an echo chamber, undersong
of winter’s orchestral weight, when violin sections
of fern-frond bowed rain’s legato.

You move through light
like water through a throat
accomplice to every living curve
as though at any moment
you might encounter god