The Brazos

John Poch Click to read more...

John Poch's most recent book of poems is Dolls (Orchises Press, 2009).  He teaches at Texas Tech University.

Click to hear John Poch read his poem, “The Brazos”

Below the Possum Kingdom Dam,
this stretch, like a housewife
toward a happy anniversary, hurries
certainly, knowing how steadily,
far but sure like an ocean
gussied up with palms and mangroves,
anhingas patient on cypress knees,
phalaropes anxious for circles,
in circles, fate waits.

She has encircled me
with her bare arms, and her eyes
don’t worry like a canoe
tied to a river island. Her eyes
are wet and quick like a swallow
skimming the river with a little splash.

In shadow the wind on water
over white rocks moves light to delight,
and just downstream high tension wires
hold above the scene. They travel
to a hospital and to houses,
one house where a woman,
irons a shirtsleeve smooth
as the arms of God.

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