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, 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.
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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.
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