There are secret rivers about my person
they do not go beepbeep at the airport.
no, they are less substantial than mercury.
they trickle like snakes on granite
like the aftermath of a thousand
tar-paved roads caving in.

You dug too deep that time.

                    *

This only do I love of you:
that you are riverine.
Oh my land, how I love
that your rivers intertwine
not in air, but in rock
all your linking glinting
rocks all your hidden
hidden flows, all that's coming
all that goes. Oh my serpent
writhe with me, in the depths
insidiously, then untapped
and untrapped, our sweet water
will be free.

                    *

I love the snaking waters slowly under
the strangeness of the lengths run parallel
in the heat of glinting days up in the sun
I imagine all your secret rivers.

Other winding things that take their time:
the snakes of steam that hover in the air
the push and prattle of your rattling bus
the slow and silent spreading of your mouth.

                    *

Oh my land, this is my love:
you, riverine.
The one thing that is twining
that is mine.
The sinews of your arms
that wrap around,
the running currents swift
beneath the ground.

                    *

They are the reason my hands are like your hands.
If you must know me, know my secret rivers.