MER: Following my Daughter Upstream

First published March 14, 2023 in MER Journal.

Following my Daughter Upstream

Yes, I would like to slip quietly into a lazy river,

to float downstream, buoyed by a swan-shaped 

raft with a beer in one hand. 

I don’t really care where it takes me,

that it has no tributary or delta. Lazy 

rivers go in circles, if you’re familiar. 

But more than anything, I want to be with you,

And you’d rather swim. So I haul my 

swan to shore, chug, and dive. You are long 

muscles rippling water off the back. You are drawn

upriver, up through the damned 

rocky edges of dangerous intention and sinister 

chance. Up over waterfalls of asphalt and past 

trees that scrape the sky. You flick your angry tail  

when the gentle current is pounded into a foaming rage. 

You foment, you struggle. We all begin to churn. 

We are mindful of this water

that controls the flow, how it gushes femicide 

and rolls deadly against the bottom. You are now

we, and we are swimming up to the source, 

up to the mountain top. We are going 

to swim inside and rapid it 

all back down into the openness of the 

ocean, our salt will melt the snow.