Down by Okkervil River slow silent thick and black, I stared into the water, and
the water it stared back. The night it fell from tangles of the branches on the
shore as it had on Okkervil River before. Down by Okkervil River’s
cigarettes and rusty tires, we made ourselves an altar, we lit our nightly
fires. And the smoke lay thick and smothered all the skunk cabbage and vines
where Gods were born and Gods lay down to die. With your hand inside my pocket,
you whispered in my ear “We have come from ugliness to find some refuge
here. With this bracken for a blanket, where these limbs stick out like bones,
we have found a place where we can be alone.� And I tried to tell you, as
I kissed your hard dry lips, all the things I dreamed about. I touched your
bone white hips. Far away our parents slept in while we watched our fire burn.
They dreamed of nothing and got nothing in return. And the water slipped on
slowly past our bodies in the weeds, pulling plastic wrap and razors on its
current through the reeds. Then I woke up one cold morning, felt an absence at
my back, and I searched and stared but only the river stared