Walking along the river’s edge,
The water level low this year
The receded river reveals
.
A lifetime’s worth of accumulated
Garbage. A bicycle straddles
A burned out, gutted blue
.
Sofa, spilling its soggy innards
To a sun close and ragged.
I step through tall grasses
.
And reeds and feel the ground
Give as my right foot crushes
The jellied chest of a rabbit,
.
Left eye still open, intact, surveying
The world’s turning over and into
The future, ceaseless, to the caress
.
And applause of a mourning mass
Of flies gorging on the stink. I gaze
Over the water, color of childhood’s
.
Chocolate milk we chugged to build
Our bones strong enough to labor cheaply,
Consume greatly, or die in war. The water
.
Barely moves it seems, swirls lazily on
Occasion, bubbles and froths in small
Whirlpools, passes under bridges
.
Where homes are made, carrying hypodermics,
Shredded clothing, condoms, flowers,
Down the river far away, the city’s dirty
.
Valentine delivered daily on the open
Veins of the river, low this year, yet somehow
still praiseworthy in its tattered beauty.
.
A cool flag, dissecting the city’s body
and teeming still with life in the midst
Of the ongoing 21st century death parade.
Nick DePascal is a poet and high school teacher in Albuquerque.