You can make it anything –
that’s the thing about a river,
mutable, travelling, here and gone…

It’s time – drawn out, days and years,
or just a long blue brushstroke of water colour paint,
taking 1-2-3 seconds to dry.

It’s space too – my arms inside it,
shifting it across my body,
making a tiny volume in this world.

And of course it’s love – every song
too ready on my lips, crying rivers of it, skating down it,
rocking its boat, rocking it.

And you escaping me but never really leaving,
though days I wish you would.
Days, I wish I could un-river you.