Parable

What loves and gets
on with it cares

nothing for its own
survival: a dropped

tail, the expendable edge
of living. At the dam,

half our conversation
carries on, the rest

of our words fold up in the pitch
and frequency of the river

over the spillway,
newspaper boats

racing to an end we can’t
see from here. I can

hardly hear you, and yet
from this bench,

everything seems possible:
the river sings, your hand

is not on mine. I try to read
your body language, and

read you reading me.
It’s like we’re moving

through a shutdown house,
throwing open windows

room by room
to change internal weather.

You sang once, badly, and
I hearted you for for doing

what you knew you couldn’t.
Another parable for love.

That song carries on against
this river, against the marl

and murk of falling and moving on.

Charmaine Cadeau

Charmaine Cadeau

Charmaine Cadeau, born in Toronto, now lives and works in Lewisville, NC. She is an Associate Professor of English at High Point University, where she teaches creative writing and literature, and serves as the advisor for Apogee Magazine. She has published two collections of poetry, What You Used to Wear (Goose Lane Editions) and Placeholder (Brick Books), the most recent of which won the Brockman Campbell Book Award and the ReLit Award. Her newest book, Skytale, was handmade with the support of JackPine Press.
Charmaine Cadeau

Also by Charmaine Cadeau (see all)

Author: Charmaine Cadeau

Charmaine Cadeau, born in Toronto, now lives and works in Lewisville, NC. She is an Associate Professor of English at High Point University, where she teaches creative writing and literature, and serves as the advisor for Apogee Magazine. She has published two collections of poetry, What You Used to Wear (Goose Lane Editions) and Placeholder (Brick Books), the most recent of which won the Brockman Campbell Book Award and the ReLit Award. Her newest book, Skytale, was handmade with the support of JackPine Press.