Later in your house in an almanac I'm tapping on that country
where rivers are boring deeper each year,
floods like pregnancies in rich families
spread a happy stain wider and wider,
and then the heavy green water for months
slides through those gorges, those bigger and bigger gorges.
Our country is like a piece of broken pottery
there on the page, pink and jagged.
The grass we could see five minutes ago,
and the silver, obese river,
and old memories soaking the egg of the dark,
must be edges of our imagination,
piers we dive from.
Move your finger and hold it still –
that
is the sea, swimming in it
you hope for a few miles, then lose your breath.
Carol Polcovar
DROUGHT
this summer seemed longer
the heat held itself to the seams of my dress
absences lined doorways
even death washed blue
everything might have been so simple
the rain might have come
or the low winds from the north
but everything multiplied
in a kind of silence
and later the surface of the rocks
made no gesture
