2 Samuel 14:14
The soapy drench is physics drawn to river
toward me, 15 feet away in my flimsy
chair. At first its body fans to deliver
brims to concrete sinks I had not glimpsed,
then narrows to speed unveiling dips and bellies,
then courses on to a hole with a remnant pool
anchored by a cigar butt. A halt belies
its reaches. A lump has pushed the grey drool
around the promised lake in delta featherings
while another drive has passed beneath my seat
to rest in my colossal shadow, clearing
its slate of suds. The flow now ponds in the heat
and readies its ghost mirror to catch me, gray
in noon’s appraisals, the reaper of the day.
Ricardo Pau-Llosa’s ninth book of poems will be released this fall by his longtime publisher, Carnegie Mellon University Press. He is the featured poet in Birmingham Poetry Review’s fiftieth issue. He is an art critic, curator, and collector, as well as a writer of short fiction.
