Divining for Starters (24)


The bass beat has no beginning, but lifts from its submersion as though its stroke had not faded but taken the dark steps beneath the city and strutted there a while.

The trees along the river stand as bare as hatred.

I know a child fond of arguing, unaware of her desire and so increasingly assured of the world's shoddiness.

Everyone holds their distance from the river in winter, so keen and prevailing is the sense of its strangling cold.

I know a child.

Nearer the river, the beat subsides, and the roar over the scalloped stones vanquishes it entirely.

Which is to say subterranean.

O child I would not call mine.