A City of Buried Rivers
A poem
You can hear it, the urgency of water.
It is 2:28 a.m. in the chronicle of the world’s murmur.
You wait till you and the rivers are alone,
ask them how it feels to never stop,
how it felt when sky and cloud
disappeared into fluid memory.
Rivers begin with the tears of a giant tortoise
that finds its eggs broken, snake tracks in the sand.
You want to roll up the city in an afghan carpet,
let the rivers bask in sunshine.
You see people you knew just below the blue’s surface —
you grab them, shake them, yell breathe to their faces.
It is 2:32 a.m.
You can feel it, the urgency.