Brad Reyes © 2004 All Rights Reserved
Brad Reyes © 2004 All Rights Reserved
She stops at a river, frozen
She sent me a photograph later,
a broad white plain,
houses lining the edges
like cautious witnesses to something;
the Brigadoon of solid geography,
or better yet the genesis of inevitable civilization:
tire tracks visible in the expanse of even snow,
and, at the curving of what had been water,
clusters of dark ice-fishing huts,
the markers of our need to dwell anywhere
that will hold us even for a moment.
I know she was behind the camera,
yet I couldn’t help picturing her in one of those huts instead,
with their tiny high windows,
their close walls,
and at her booted feet no floor;
rather the snow, the ice,
and the hole sawn clear through to wet,
to what had so recently owned this place
bank to bank,
and what, I said to myself in sudden passion,
squeezing thumbprints into the photo,
would soon enough want it all back again.
David Harris Ebenbach’s poetry has previously appeared in Arbutus, Stickman Review and La Petite Zine, among others. Another poetry project — leaving hundreds of free poems in unexpected locations throughout Philadelphia — was widely covered by the media.