OUSE II

not one day nor ten
  would sate the Ouse
  but twenty-one days
  
  counting stones
  Virginia of the waters
  scars of our dread.

II

mother ushers
  the water
  seventy years of fright
  beauty, yes!
  the drowning cry
  of a nonliably bodied
  blackberry bush.

IV

The quiet of all that was written
without language.
ROSA FONT

you shell almonds
  skin stunned fish
  bursting
  mouthfuls of cherry
  a language sheared like
  thistle bloom
  dignifying
  other rivers.

[UNTITLED]

you’re two by the book’s end
  abandoned at intermission
  unable to wolf it down
  short of means and faith   as was she
  you walk away with this failed
  Ouse in your pocket.