Upriver

Jon Pineda

pools unspool
like a pulled thread

the brightest colors
muted as fish

hover near wedged
boulders splashed

with pale lichen

if I stay here longer
I will have to keep

telling myself
to breathe

Jon Pineda is the author of six books, most recently the novel Let’s No One Get Hurt (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018). He teaches at William & Mary.