This is God’s river, he said. Your heritage is
as holy and wet as the noses of catfish under
this skiff. I lowered my hat brim and watched two
squirrels scramble loose from oak branch
to maple and back for almost an hour,

one of them caught up in the rush of wanting
to be on top of the other. I busted the sun
peeking and smelled honeysuckle drifting
from the ether. It reminded me of those Chinese
women under the cherry tree singing

on the other side of the earth, in silk,
in clouds of red silk, and that’s when I knew
I loved my father but could never replicate
his body. His back was as tall as a hill
rising to meet a red-tailed hawk

for breakfast. I felt his hands touch
my shoulders as gently as he touched
anything in his entire life, and although I cannot
understand the certitude of cosmologies,
I know that I was born late and frail.

My star hovered over the water at night
then sank under its unbearable weight.
I waved goodbye to the ghosts
of my childhood and married a woman
who was better than jasmine on my tongue.

She took me to a peasant’s Paris to float
on the Seine, which was not my river,
which was not my cathedral or carnival feast.
There is no Mediterranean I can’t absolve
with a garland of soot, thorn and backwater.

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