Confluence of Rivers and Mouths by Laren McClung - Rattle: Poetry (original) (raw)

Today I saw a woman on Spring Street

with two black spaniels. She was crouching

and whispering to them. The dogs

took turns licking the woman on the mouth.

This woman’s mouth was its own world.

There are many worlds. We can enter them.

I read that Frydek-Mistek is a natural gate

into the mountains. One river empties

into the mouth of another. I imagine you

singing your nightingale song back

in D.C. I forget little things. This is a way

of surviving. I make imprints in the snow

in my dreams aggressively, practice

my blues-scales, collapse bridges,

converse with my grandmother, walk

into the water and keep walking.

I don’t know how surviving things can

better me, but I have many secrets.

And secrets, I’m learning, are like sheets,

or a shroud wrapped so tight it seems

impossible to find the opening to get out.