Riverbeds

by STEPHANIE POWELL 

Your appreciation of this lake is
taxonomic, silt oozing
Lower Palaeozoic deposits, the generational
ebbing of rock. Don’t be stupid
the fish are gone and you won’t find
them with your palms in the stream.

The sun has slunk inside the epidermis
but I don’t say that could mean skin cancer
each freckle
an incision in your beautiful hide.

When you lie with face pressed against
palm you are the ranges.
Cathedral peaks of old granite in the
shape of your torso, fortifications of limb.
Don’t move.