the river

words, like the murky waters of the Charles River

covered by a sheen of autumnal frost,

flow almost imperceptibly slow

towards some ultimate conclusion.

the main ideas-

you, me, my life, your dreams, our future,

like jagged unconnected ice floes

perennially shift and jar one another,

never quite fit together.

old Coke cans, cigarette butts, other bits of debris-

memories that have outlived their usefulness, ways we used to be-

collect in the unfrozen channels between the ice, serving

each as another barrier to union.

neon based colors of the city

reflect of the surface, distracting

like the weather or some movie or your new dress,

leading me away from the current, from its object.

so easy to forget where i'm going this way.

it takes so much patience to follow the river

and courage to enter the flow;

it takes so much from me to tell you i love you,

to see with you where that goes.

-Joshua Putnam