The River Princess

If you want her, want her as the river would,
call her in with cackles and whispers,
a whole mouth of secrets.
Carve her name on the banks,
tell her to come and see.
Let her moment be unstable,
balanced on such a brink as she is.
Take her then, white and pliant as a bride,
through all your long shadows,
past the small places where she could have lived
and died having never had a story.
Carry her along your beautiful miles
and she will weave bouquets of leaves and twine,
and she shall be a mystery, a memory,
immortal in the minds of those who say
they knew her once upon a time.


**From All the Ways We Could Have Met