When I consider the river I see only myself  
  
                  stretched across the muddy floor, the horizon  
             
a pink curtain I can’t yank. Reeds 
  
                 bristle the bank like wild-haired children 
  
buried to their necks. Dragged, I’ll yield 
  
                secrets: hypodermics, sunken  
  
backseats of cars, black garbage bags  
  
                wound with cord, knives, an iron  
  
stove, mirror glass, annular humps 
  
                of tires. Swollen, I purl under the ribbed 
  
cages linking flank to flank. The sun finds me bound 
  
                for the salt wedge, licks another body’s cycle, a path- 
  
ologist’s debate: what time? cause?  Too late.