— for Kevin Miller
 

Ice in a riverbed: a word
In your mouth: each remembers

The other. Your joy only
One reflection: the way grease

From a boy’s palm darkens
A page. Each time perishable

Freight thunders by, he feels
Hopeful: The girl he’ll leave

Flexes her calves deliberately
Every rung up a picker’s ladder

In Coup’s orchard by the river.
How can anyone make a living

Of departures: when crossing
The line can mean nothing

But distance, a vanishing point
Beyond which light won’t enter?

I mean when the river’s iced over
Horses, a few then hundreds,

Surge across: like one current
Over another: liquid and solid.

Come spring, quick thaw spells out
Sacrament: Or is that sacrifice?

 

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“Juxtaposition” first appeared in Poetry International.