I.
I had known you from another boat on the same river
On the same river in the same prairie
Henceforth; when I was a moth
Coming astern and soapy water making lisle progressions from the wing
Beneath, there are pondweeds which tether wooden boats and lily pads and carcasses to the sunken banks
And wings
In this morning, bathing in that algae water, your hair is auburn like the sun
You light a joint in your mouth
Your laugh is that of a boy — it always has been — and I have always articulated you in such a way
I apologise now, because I know you are more.
Almost drowning between the rushes, the wings are pulled backwards and earthbound
But here you are hallowed by the sun, and you will be shepherded upward to heaven
Unholy and wingless, but angelic in such a way
Your fishing net is untangled now
Summer will bring you endless harvest
Of promise
Of berries, and fish, and sunlight, and love
Somewhere ceaselessly in this cathedral
And from beneath the water of which I am held to without enquiry, eternally
I have known your dream
II.
Here in this dream, I had known you
From the same river
The water which carries boats and lake weed pollen against the same prairie always
Henceforth; when I was an angel
All clovers and mushrooms circumnavigate browns of which foliage has nursed and then smothered
At noon everything is in equilibrium
And you tail the river this time as a hunter
Searching
Passive beyond the mouths of the hedgerow I hang backward over a branch
So if I fall
It would be to fly
And you wade wide-eyed, headfirst and callow into the rushes
And the water becomes a darker green, the same way you thought your eyes did in the summer
Until you remembered how this land could move beneath you
And you would drown each time
The river subsides to the water snakes
They surface to lick the fallen leaves from your palms
And I watch from my branch as you feed your killers graciously by hand
Clouds move in circles around the sun
The water oscillates, then settles into a single stillness
As the serpents carry you through the green
Clawing upon the mossy embankment, the white of my dress withers under the earth
My hands below the tide
Searching
And sinking between the skeletons of moths and reeds
I know you would go unwavering
Because beneath, the seasons will escape you
And in here in your dream by your river
I will wait for you always
III.
I dreamed I had known you
These waters would dream for you every time
Henceforth; when I was a child
The dialogue from prairie to riverbed to sky is held between a vision now
Water pearls around my neck beside the curator
Or hunter
And you, my wayfarer
With a lacuna between the prayers of distant trees and
My prairie nightgown which gathers up about my legs
Here, snowfall makes ceramics of river stones-
Of the river, stillness.
As the way that moths await at the threshold,
Liminality feels warm and light
Under the planks of this watery death
Old mahogany straining against old rope by an embankment
I invoke you beside me
So that in this dream, in every dream I might stay
In this prairie
Lying tenderly beside you
IV.
Life is a phantasmagoria in a wooden boat which sails through my river
Henceforth; when I was a lover
Wandering from prairie snakes and grass and moths and the singular anatomy of continuing
To some vanishing point beyond this
And you pull the oars against the water which opens by a small lamp, and the sky ceaseless and the river deathless
Because wherever I am going, I have known these waters
And so, with the things you have set upon my palms
I listen at last
Silently as things drown away