Love Is A Murmuring River

Love is a murmuring river gliding over sleeping bedrock:

It moves patiently past the sickened dock leaves anchored

On the shore, it washes up the enamelled stones, and it rattles

The chains of the deep while wantonly filling the canal lock.


Marshy bog is under foot as muggy rain falls on builders:

Men with hats and cans of cider lugging bricks

On a Sunday. The lime-green algae sways and laughs

Blowing bubbles in defiance at the current stoppers.


Hate is a hollering river damned by a red wax seal:

Its state is eternal push-pull zeal enraged by rejection,

It holds itself hostage to the bank and like the ocean swells,

Breaking its back; and that’s before it lays the keel.