You told me that you were a river and I asked you what were the

leaves, and the

petals

and the

dandy lion crowns

and the

pieces of steams like wrist veins

or mouse whiskers.

You said you didn’t know yet.

I wanted to know what I was if you were a river.

If I could the drop of a stone from the hands of a girl whose mother still braids her hair like the veins of leaves

or the unfortunate descent of a gypsy moth given in to the corrosive kisses of a cold breeze. An Ircarus laying on her back in the water.

or if I was the careful fingers of ivy and moss eyebrows on the bank.

But you said I was a river too– that we were all rivers– that mine had met his–

I had never thought of myself as capable of a River.