American River

Walking along the river’s edge,

The water level low this year

The receded river reveals

.

A lifetime’s worth of accumulated

Garbage. A bicycle straddles

A burned out, gutted blue

.

Sofa, spilling its soggy innards

To a sun close and ragged.

I step through tall grasses

.

And reeds and feel the ground

Give as my right foot crushes

The jellied chest of a rabbit,

.

Left eye still open, intact, surveying

The world’s turning over and into

The future, ceaseless, to the caress

.

And applause of a mourning mass

Of flies gorging on the stink. I gaze

Over the water, color of childhood’s

.

Chocolate milk we chugged to build

Our bones strong enough to labor cheaply,

Consume greatly, or die in war. The water

.

Barely moves it seems, swirls lazily on

Occasion, bubbles and froths in small

Whirlpools, passes under bridges

.

Where homes are made, carrying hypodermics,

Shredded clothing, condoms, flowers,

Down the river far away, the city’s dirty

.

Valentine delivered daily on the open

Veins of the river, low this year, yet somehow

still praiseworthy in its tattered beauty.

.

A cool flag, dissecting the city’s body

and teeming still with life in the midst

Of the ongoing 21^st century death parade.

Nick DePascal is a poet and high school teacher in Albuquerque.