The River is a Lost Child
Forrest Rapier
humming a lullaby to the shipyard
as plainsong Spanish ponies gallop
gloriously untamed beneath milky
black stars, the knifeflies
hovering, unforgivingly sharp.
Lightning cuts ancient language
across the nightshift dashboard of sawgrass.
If you don’t look for anything,
you won’t find nothing you won’t like.
Whole waterway’s full of hidden people
and the dead who’ll never leave.
The river is a tame child, lost and hovering
like swords humming blackfly melodies
to endless, turquoise yards of sea stars
as the inglorious Spanish ships lull, tranquil
beneath milky planets and the horsehead nebula
Forrest Rapier has poetry forthcoming in Dead Mule, Levee, Whiskey Tit, and West Trade Review. He has received fellowships from BOAAT, Looking Glass Falls, Sewanee Writers Conference, and has also held writing residencies at the University of Virginia and Brevard College. Former poetry editor for Greensboro Review and North Carolina Writers Network, he recently received his MFA from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro where he now lives and hikes the surrounding Blue Ridge Mountains.