River of Grief

It takes centuries for water to carve
      shelves into canyons, for time to show 
           a landscape different from the ones 
scarred with rusted gradations of color,  
      etched with marks from some previous 
           inundation. But aren't we always
rivered by grief? And the hollows in
      our collarbones, petaled with thorns 
           and gashed with flowers; the last 
to the last press of cold clay lips before the body 
      sank into the layer where other bodies
           were dumped, where a beast kicked
its overburden of dirt and soil. There
      they sleep surrounded by slate and 
           flagstone, dolomite, granite, 
veined marble. Every place that bears a wound
      simmers with the mineral trace of explosions,
           echo of voices torn from bewildered 
throats. If we are to rise from out of this 
      basin's sullied hem, somehow we must believe  
           what the water says: how the depth of our
grief is equal to how much we remember from when   
      we dressed each other's hurts, from when
           our mouths carried each other's names.