As many ways as you can say
within an inch

of the dying fish, water—
in the blank blade between

Spring and old Summer.
Water, with its breaming

closet shores and sure enough,
its night-crawlers, and craw-

fish, and night-thin rendering
when the Cimarron bends

its cracking back.
Water, where Arum swam

with his brother. His sister,
a mouthful of berries, and mother,

ground down and doubting
the wheat sheaves.

Her sugaring and shape-
shifting. There was her shrill voice,

the chill in the air, the woods
at the edge of the river.

There was water washing
red: high rapids,

prone to repeatedly flood.

____

This poem is from a current project set during the dust storms, drought, and eventual rains of depression-era Oklahoma.