By the River In Which We Bled

By the river in which we bled,
knowing nothing better;
in the green-yellow stalks of dwarf water plants
whose splayed out pads wavered on the horizon:
"Father of hands, old duck hands."
Veins thickened by the pressure of each other:
here at eye level or a little under, oozing.
The bridge in the distance looming through the fog,
its cartilaginous surfaces tense,
awaiting our last vacant noon beneath the sun's drum,
reflecting on all of vacuous nature,
asleep, pressed to the grass,
thumbs like mushrooms wanting to rise, bulbous and lifeless;
and later,
doomed in the heat, losing the shade of the tree,
acres of skin speckled with dried saliva,
matted hair, black blood, other juice loosings,
nameless in the light, named in the night,
time passing,
skulls and medallions,
unmooned, cloudless, and silent,
the water runneling by without time,
useless, brooding.

Leo Obrst