Linda Ann Strang – Ⅳ

Where They Say: Don’t Touch. 

 

 

 

The river is by what it isn’t,

like time:

 

a cry out of U-shapes,

the former lover of an oxbow lake,

 

a stutter of interrupted trees

out of phase,

 

a hum of brush music,

and a deep gouge

 

all the way back to the faint hope

of an under-painting.

 

The river’s signature is a delta,

above a gold frame;

 

in the past, there were the open legs

of an easel.

 

Touch the river and kiss

it. Let it gouge out a gorge

 

for your dreams,

where the stars tumble in the pebbles,

 

rejuvenated, way down.