Where Else?

By Emma Wheeler (Alder)

 

Why do the cops yell at me every other time I come to the river?

Since when did rivers become illegal?

Where do these cops draw the borderlines between cement and river-we-cannot-be?

Vetch? Willow? Silt? Swallow-nest?

Clean clothes? White skin? Another place to lay your head at night?

Where else am I supposed to pray?

​

If a river could, would it eat a cop, swallow them whole and leave only a badge in a swirling eddy?

Would great blue heron stand silent witness?