Three Pathetic Fallacies

River is a lonely geography,
the silence of its endless course
colder than any corpse.

Sloppy hands ascend,
eager as fish,
to touch the dimpled pink of flesh.

There is a jag in the sky that bleeds daylight;
at dusk in the darkness of suburb windows
specks of hope are swimming in a sea.

[First published September 1995]