Two Poems by Carey Salerno

River Ephemeral

River, why did you lead me to you
                                                  when there is no water
                                                  not to drink nor drown in
                                                  not to stare into and see this whiteness
                                                                 to see past the whiteout of whiteness
                                 snowsquall into the rushing water which does not warm
not by the sun nor by my breath         not by the school of trout huddling
near the bank
no trout in this stream                 no water                                                 no
stream

I want to peel back this fish skin and reveal some new pigment
here on the bank           where it is not safe to disrobe
nor to have these fluted organs in my body
To whom do I say this
river dried up
                       river a bed of rock between me and another wood
                                                                                                river with no shadow,
                                                                                no sand in which to sink
                                                                                river with no body.
                                River of form and formless.

Water Reader Invokes a Little Shakespeare

Don’t wade in the absent flat of a rushing river
but hang back and settle onto its bank,
what stone spit up on the side and grass pushing through.
Let your chewy waders dry in the sunrise, the light warming first your
hair.       you.                    first.
When the river is rushing in its middle
seek out the secret river:
   a boulder block channeling water where brown trout tread fat and lazy
awaiting the stone fly
the fruit of your cast flickering                  prime lie              feeding lie
prime lie.

The river won’t cease its hurry
to the afterwards place, carrying water from some home high to another
one low,
starting as the trickle of a snowcap’s crown bleating,
it babbled at first like an infant.
Where once they were our whole world,
we forget how the children surprised us
mocking bird coo, lanky-leg foal, whose drunken toddling
was a drip from the thaw now galloping wild before us.
But soft, what light through yonder window
breaks? It is the east, and Ryan
the fly fisher, you will not be my son.

Carey Salerno is the executive editor & director of Alice James Books. She is also the author of Shelter (2009) and coeditor of Lit From Inside: 40 Years of Poetry from Alice James Books (2013). She teaches poetry writing for the University of Maine at Farmington. You may find her essays, poems–and articles and interviews regarding her work–in print and online.