By Cal Freeman
I hate the river walk, the fishers
fumbling large mouths silvered
like clean windows
of the icon’s eastern face
before tossing them to disappear
into the murk girth-sore
and cankered, changed.
I’m not eating this lunch,
not sharing pastrami with flies.
Glug and plash
of currents in the straits,
gnawing contemplation
when it comes time for some
fisher of men to toss me back,
for the deeds to be occluded
by the brackish shadows—
it wasn’t yet my turn in the hyaline
terror of the Coleman cooler.
What is it about water
that begs encomiums for birds?
The sub-categories of heron
(I could’ve simply stayed home),
symbols of patience (egret,
great blue) proliferate
and get mixed up with languor
when anyone can
step out the door and start
walking, unintentionally
proclaiming the beauty
in the lyric’s slow accretions—
unhooked and fed between
the barbicans to water.
Cal Freeman is the author of the books Fight Songs (Eyewear, 2017) and Poolside at the
Dearborn Inn (R&R Press, 2022). His writing has appeared in many journals including The
Oxford American, The Poetry Review, River Styx, Southword, Passages North, and
Hippocampus. He lives in Dearborn, MI and teaches at Oakland University. He also serves as
music editor of The Museum of Americana: A Literary Review and as Writer-In-Residence with
InsideOut Literary Arts Detroit.
