River revealed it—big, pale curve like a question mark sticking out of the riverbank-- and you were struck by what’s what. Rivers
are all about water down here and water up there in the rivers of air: scarcity yields scorched earth, fields of no food. Too much swells a deluge-- homes and whole lives swept away. What’s
what is mammoth, is as unbelievable as miles-deep ice sheets, as the last of a species breathing its last.
Tusk tells a tale of tall grass as far and wide as they could walk. They had no way to change what was changing, so lumbered and ate their way across a cold paradise until it was neither. And you—after river, erosion, and revelation-- what are you going to do (question mark)
-- Matthew Murrey’s poems have appeared widely, most recently in Split Rock Review, Another Chicago Magazine, and Rust + Moth. He’s an NEA Fellowship recipient, and his collection, Bulletproof, was published in 2019 by Jacar Press. He was a public school librarian for over twenty years and lives in Urbana, Illinois with his partner; they have two grown sons.