Staring To The Bend In The River And All What You'Ll Leave Behind Poem by Christopher Keller

What I am on your skin,
in the air where your voice treads
as calm as brown lies in Copper Canyon,
is amnesia waking.

Here, there is the death of mothers
and the blankets they felt you needed around you,
trying to comfort you into repenting, each time
I reminded you of your nakedness.

And whatever is concealed
beneath the pleated drapes in black ink
or the burning scarves wrapped around your neck,
you will no longer feel

because it is December
and the tides of sunlight are perforated,
loosening across the dreams you keep
for the waters around the bend to hear.

And if you jumped in the alluvial of dusk
that dances as the cunning plexus of a gypsy does,
you wouldn't scream or yell for help jokingly,
as children do to gain attention.