The River After Poem by James Andrews

Wide eyed and open in astonishment I watch
Those long and curving red nailed fingers
Close around me in the evening,
Sun setting in the windows of the Hudson
Shenandoah or St. Augustine.
You gather yourself down
And hurl your graceful throat against me.

Wide eyed and open in astonishment you rise
Toward long slow strokes
My hands above you in the morning,
Daylight in the windows of New Jersey
Rhinebeck or the Appalachians.
Your belly rises in my hand
My fingers splay inside your shivering.

There have been many places; fields and orchards
Tombs and cenotaphs,
Anthems and arias,
Airports, winter moons and summer winds.
Gasping at some place just newly touched.

Quite often in the night I find I have reached up and out
And wondered why there is no weight above my empty hands.

Then, open and astonished,
I feel that you have come to rest within them.
Close my curving hands around you,
Remember other moons.