Caddis
I lay a long time in the visual river,
between leaf-matter and the black rush, in a body-
cast of sand sinewed together. I let
the river into my house, into slits
in feathery gills, my wordless siblings stuck
to rock beside me. We lay between
what the river meant and what it means, its syntax
a tongue where our mother’s wings dissolved
like rice-paper. Over and over,
light congealed in atom-strands of water; meanwhile,
God’s motif hardened inside me—
first, the imprint of wings in loose molecules,
and then filmy wings. When I could stay
in and under no longer, the mirror
rivered itself and I flew
inside out.
[Poem originally appeared in Pleiades]
