Entering the Ouse

First the bad boots give up their strength, then the toes lift their anchors. The ankle bones are broken, and so on, until the bladder lets go, without shame, and the genital organ washes away, the ovum and her fertile signals. A proxy pain stands in for the larger intangible. Has nothing to do with tufts of snow blown upon the unforgiving surface, but how I mistook the beauty of those particle deaths, their of-the-world stardom, as a kind of metaphysical river, that if I looked long enough, with enough reverence... Let my waist, bled numb, stand in for that miscalculation. And the severed friendships in the current’s wake, the bloom blown off the stricken self. I saw formal water, knowing my body wanted to go there. My only child. How I’ve betrayed you.