Desire, The River

by Bill Gillard

You buy the vinyl, the CD. You open the package. There it is--a lyric sheet. The best! And even before you listen to the music, you devour the lyrics to see if they move beyond the plain and obvious into something surprising and rare. This chapbook is the lyrics sheet to an album you've never heard of. If Bruce Springsteen in about 1980 wrote poems about living and death in New York City, this would be the chapbook--21 poems deep--that he might have come up with. the man flows into town drags his heels down Main Street like a stone that skips across a pond and the woman who watches thinks he's just a lonely sailor washed ashore by a desperate wind he needs someone to hold his hand, clean him up, and I am just the girl yes, I am just that girl she wades in after him gathers her skirt in her two fists quiet, like a misty evening rain at the riverbank he turns flows downstream into the tall grass where no one speaks in words And she follows like a soft, summer breeze that hisses the reeds a touch on her shoulder startled birds alight from a bush she smiles into the man's eyes gives herself to him a god among the living women among men cuts herself open for him, all for him the smell of his neck his soft hair she fingers the press of his lips the warmth of his touch the beat of his heart breathing beside her a goddess among us women with men the channel he flows through desire the river the smell of his neck his soft hair she fingers the press of his lips the warmth of his touch the beat of his heart breathing beside her a goddess among us women with men the channel he flows through desire the river the channel he flows through desire the river desire the river desire desire the river

32 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2009