Journal of Responses

I

Fletcher’s Cove, this morning by the rocks, two men

sit with a dog between them, one

lighting a cigarette, the other already smoking.

They watch sculls lick the Potomac, gliding north.

The air is brown with exhalation. My riverboat never comes.

I am brown with waiting.

II

After eating fried catfish for lunch, your styrofoam calligraphy

pollutes more than the river. So much litter collects

around me that I leave the District

for creeks as far as Pennsylvania. I wear canvas

waders instead of rubber. Casting, casting, casting.

I do not sell anything.

III

While I scraped the afternoon from rudders,

an angler with legs like stilts came by, asking

about night crawlers. I thought of playing horse with you.

In those days you were a wide-eyed zoo creature.

You were a dog. You were sad. Sad is easy.

IV

Tonight, in the boathouse, my scalp goes red avoiding you.

Bloodworms quiver in my stomach.

Outside, the river is so loud it rings like the broken sidewalk

under the apathy of my feet the night I left you.

Over the crescendo of my anxiety, you have watched me

through the swamp oaks, but moss carpets my thoughts

and your face is now the crunch of leaves beneath the pressure of air.