rusalochka

footprints & breath-cracks on the north saskatchewan, a few months ago

rusalochka
(for arwen)

april, my dreams still filled with ice:
gliding & effluent, cryptic cracklings,
the slow choke of winter. but sun

slices a hole in the creaky windpipe
of the river, lets her foggy breath seep
out the cracks, pale blue edges

ragged with melt. rustless & restless,
she cannot wait for thawing; her voice
sublimates sparse into

air, hits my cells & spreads like a
snowy hoof-print melting, stretched in the
crooked dance of the spring sun.

oj, provedu ja rusalochku
azh do shtiri bor!

rusalka with her mouth open
she holds the rotten berries
of our small deaths on her tongue

spits pomegranate pits into the sweet mud
of the banks, sings to the new seedlings:
gives us water, grows us words.