THE FLINT RIVER
Like the Lethe, which says Forget, or the one in Egypt,
a river will take into itself what is offered: run-offs, toxic
chemicals returned as rain, then snow, which looks beautiful,
the road salt, its chloride, dead bodies, the garbage.
It will open its mouth, keep open cloud-watching eyes.
Childlike, it will obey, drink innocently what is given,
will come when called, will deliver the poison.
Who knows why? Not that mindless water, not the glacial-
fed Huron, not the children’s changed bones and brains.
The money knows, dirty as winter leaves on the riverbanks,
precious, obscene, to be saved and saved and saved.
–Paula Bohince
***
Paula Bohince’s third collection Swallows and Waves was published by Sarabande in early 2016.
