In Praise of Rivers

When packing bodies into
cylindrical clothing, notice
how pressures shape,

arc with contentment,
flow easily around corners
bent happily into bulges.

Bridges inscribe nothing: they sponsor
only temporary conditions. What
you want is to bend rivers

at will, like bending planetary orbits
and dumb meteors so hopelessly
at the mercy of what is massive. What you

do not want is a view, a monument
made for an instant of easy sleep,
tormented beauty: the same hook

pried like parasites from insatiable
mouths, jaunty grins, saturnine
seagulls on homesick boulders.

Author of the article

Joddy Murray's work has appeared or is forthcoming in over 70 journals, including American Literary Review, Arc Poetry Magazine, Berkeley Poetry Review, Bluestem, The Broken Plate, Carquinez Poetry Review, Cider Press Review, Confrontation, DUCTS, Existere, Gulf Coast, Hawai’i Review, Licking River, Meridian, Minetta Review, Moonshot Magazine, New Orleans Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, Passages North, Pembroke Magazine, Portland Review, River Oak Review, Sanskrit, Southampton Review, Stickman Review, Texas Review, and Wisconsin Review. He currently teaches writing and rhetoric at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas.