SHORING

                    I should tell you

                    I know this river

                    its bends

              where rapids slow

                             which aits surface

                             & when

I was born on one side
                     my mother crossed over

                                & never came back

even after they took her first daughter
                            put her underground

The river spared me
                                  I know

because I dreamed
I floated on abandoned timber
washed up on the wrong shore

Now the river greets me

               says I love you & I believe it

its minerals the standard
against which I measure all softness

Once I was an otter & before that a pickerel
            & before that the silt
                       that gathers between toes

Once I was a diver

                                       now I’m a dam