Down by Okkervil River slow silent thick and black, I stared into the water, and the water it stared back. The night it fell from tangles of the branches on the shore as it had on Okkervil River before. Down by Okkervil River’s cigarettes and rusty tires, we made ourselves an altar, we lit our nightly fires. And the smoke lay thick and smothered all the skunk cabbage and vines where Gods were born and Gods lay down to die. With your hand inside my pocket, you whispered in my ear “We have come from ugliness to find some refuge here. With this bracken for a blanket, where these limbs stick out like bones, we have found a place where we can be alone.” And I tried to tell you, as I kissed your hard dry lips,
all the things I dreamed
about. I touched your bone white hips. Far away our
parents slept in while we
watched our fire burn. They
dreamed of nothing and got nothing in return. And the
water slipped on slowly past our bodies in the weeds,
pulling plastic wrap and
razors on its current through
the reeds. Then I woke up one
cold morning, felt an absence
at my back, and I searched and stared but only the river stared