September 23rd
This is the last time this year I’ll stand in the rain as the weather breaks
gladly, feeling the surge & ebb as rain pours then mists then pours
& I’m weightless, I’m part of the storm, I’m falling from the gutterless roof
& this soaked brown dress flaring from where my body forgot to curve
towards the Blackstone river, night-dark & ready to swell, I mean the water
ending up roaring. I sent the text myself so the rapids are mine,
placing rocks here, and here, when the still was low. I have seen this river
dead as a desert & threatening the road. We watched cars swerve from a national park.
High & judgy, sitting on a rock with my left leg underneath me—one hike
& we knighted ourselves, naked as a lucid dream feels, wandering train cars
wishing there were more than ripped seats & track clacking. The lie lay bare
as floodriver cracked bridges west of the dam. Tributaries cheer
the river, fed by a human back. Ink birds. It goes on without us for miles.
Joey Gould is a non-binary poet from Hopedale who tutors & often works with Mass Poetry for content writing, event planning, hosting, & performing. Their writing has appeared in Drunk Monkeys, District Lit, Glass: A journal of Poetry, & Memoir Mixtapes. Joey performs in the Boston cast of The Poetry Brothel as Izzie Hexxam & their first full-length collection, The Acute Avian Heart (2019, Lily Poetry Review) is now available.
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