River
Linkages
Cities come together on the banks of rivers—
where you find clusters of life,
ecosystems trembling with mud.
Children leave footprint mirrors,
reflective in the damp of river-dirt and -sand.
On boats and rafts, people feed long, slicing
lines into the water. Lines which are invisible in any light
but sun;
everyone waits for deep-river fish, big and pale-scaled, to
bite.
They bring baskets of clothes to wash
in trickling water, submerge and rub them in river-foam
until the cotton shrinks and weaves into the shape
of a flower, a white lotus spiralling
in the grasp of wet, gobleted hands.
At night, droves of bugs rise from the water-scum
and coast, each a mottled ornament, over
human settlements. Mosquitoes and moths, converging
on roofs and in doorways.
Only fire chases them away—big beacons
in the shape of ribcages, spiced with disintegrating
wood. Peeling slivers of burning fish meat.
trompe l’œil
what could be
any more dead
than the heap
of moss black fur, piled
a hairy anthill
at the foot of damp pines
five arrows
stick like toothpicks in gums
spoiled by
disease
the bear hunt is over
dogs inhale their own paws, tease
pine needles with their tongues, hear
horns
the bear, divested of its pooling black pelt
slipping off naked shoulder, mechanical
bone, like pond foam off a goose wing
an actor in the London playhouse enters
this encompassing dark coat, the human skull
helmeted by the second dome of the bear’s
hollowed head,
a convex and empty temple
the treasure
room ceiling rises and rounds
to a cupola,
except it is only flat as paper
here, the
cooling of marrow and tangerine
skin peels to
dead cell cocoons
or cigars
look up to the public balcony
the gold boss is a roving bear’s eye, but
dead
this is a museum now: beneath, clutchable,
palm-sized treasures, urns rounded
as ribcages, plates big enough
for cuts of bear meat—water, the mirror-
maker, has glossed smooth these secret
glimpses into the anatomy of dead people’s lives
softening so lusciously for readers of history
like a ripe, peelable fig: this pretending to know
the gears, the machine-like pulley of the roasted
shoulder, its soaked meat: the feast
is watched
above: faces turned in speech,
cheeks made bulbous as pears or peaches
Vera Hadzic (she/her) is a writer from Ottawa, Ontario, and is currently studying English and history at the University of Ottawa. Her work has appeared in Common House, flo., and elsewhere. Her first chapbook, Fossils You Can Swallow, is from Proper Tales Press. She can be found on Twitter @HadzicVera or through her website, www.verahadzic.com.
