Skin of River Dressed

A fisherman’s cast
is quarry to clean entrance
          Cut down the river,

                              find your way through the roots and
                              branches, the undergreen hush

                    to sandy bank and
                    circumstance, late afternoon,
                    sun hot, tubes’ bright bloom

of rubber making skin known,
the first step and kiss of cool…

          …now cold water, back
          afloat on difference, mild
          shock to settle butt

                              And go, turn, spin, drift, forget
                    which way is home or up, these

              lazy circles make
          the world habitable new
for a summer’s day

July bright blossom of sun
on gilded water, release––

                    Skin of river dressed
                              in fur, tufts of cottonwood
                    dance downy riffle

          Lift up translucent angels
for the ride, a spawning glide

              from mountains to the
              sea, a Poudre purl to Platte
              a downward course, ride

the Inter Tube all the way
to New Orleans, the levee’s

                    burst, the tides have all
              turned around, coriolis
          on the backs of heads…

Ventricle earth closed, open,
          by season, at scale, every

each with our little
              whirl, eddy, epicycle,
          a time in life on

a river, a summer’s dream
of floating, hot green sap through

                    willow cathedrals,
              this and that way of descent
                      &nbsp over cobbles worn

            smooth like time rolling down hill
          in a river––the banks stocked

with picnic’rs, young
in sweet clouds of sweet green bud,
          or older couples

                              planted in chairs, holding hands,
          chatting in clouds of sweet bud,

dogs lolling, and dogs
          swimming, and children in play
                    And lonely text’rs

          also by the river, hot
in the sun that warms the tube

                    Twirling, twirling, not
          to be forgotten, not not
directionless but

full adrift, spinning with the
nbsp;         breath of rotation, intent

                    on the release a
                        paradox, riffle and lean
                            on the stream, side to

                                        side a round ride, tube’d to butt
                                        it’s a cold blast around earth

                    Its contours are our
          locals, the swirl of gravel
pits and drainages

Or polis of eyes on each
bank watching the show, summer––

Bugs, leaves, husks, pollen,
                    rainbow film, iridescent
                              nitrogen given

          to grow the human, sorghum,
alfalfa, corn, rye, hay, wealth

          all flowing through a
river commons, shared flow per
                    second, feet and wing

                              Boxelder rustles a soft
                    applause, stellar jay says go

Time plus spin plus wind
a gravity dance, what makes
all things into circles

—

Matthew Cooperman is the author of, most recently, the atmosphere is not a perfume it is odorless (Free Verse Editions/Parlor Press, 2024) and Wonder About The, winner of the Halcyon Prize (Middle Creek, 2023) as well as NOS (disorder, not otherwise specified), with Aby Kaupang, (Futurepoem, 2018), Spool, winner of the New Measure Prize (Free Verse Editions/Parlor Press, 2016), and other books. His ninth book, Time, & Its Monument, is forthcoming from Station Hill Press. A Founding Editor of the exploratory prose journal Quarter After Eight, Cooperman is Co-Poetry Editor for Colorado Review, and Professor of English at Colorado State University. He lives in Fort Collins with his wife, the poet Aby Kaupang, and their children. More info at http://matthewcooperman.org