Missive Concluding in a River
How do I slink into this crowd —
with its obtuse bodies
or swells of chatter —
and not think of Prufrock
hawing in his chambers
with a finger rubbed raw
against his lip, scrawling
down the steady fugue
of his own drowning —
these stems, this grass
having taken on the shade
of brine — greasy light
trickling into mouths
with the certitude of silt
sliding from brink
to bed, tracing out
its stealthy eddies, settling
into a river’s shape
until a stray ankle breaks
its hidden waltz,
a stranger careening in
without fear of that
which swirls beneath him —
as if no toothy shape
or tricky form could
ensnare him, no current
would seize his waist
and pull him under,
his words wrenched away
and rendered as air.
The Kindling 