Today They Open the Rio Grande
- for Jon
Today they open the river
dusty arteries charge
as the old farmer in coveralls
races to the red wheel
to twist his own fields
full of muddy water.
Draped in his barn
under a heavy brown canvas
is a coffin lined with velvet
plump as ripe mulberries
but Jon, that’s not for you.
The moon like a tumor
grown to be sliced away.
The current says, I'll let you be,
to the cobweb in the reeds.
Each is impressed
with the other's impermanence.
Hold today’s Rio in your brain
rolling high in the grassy banks
on the gurney when they roll you in
like the Sea of Tranquility
holds that last gist of light
in its darkest hour.
- Tim Staley 2016
Tim Staley was born in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1975. He completed
a Poetry MFA from New Mexico State University in 2004. His first full-length
volume of poetry is forthcoming from Pski’s Porch Publishing. His chapbooks are
available for purchase at the Grandma Moses Press online store. Journal
publications include Border Senses, Cacti Fur, Canary, Chiron Review,
Circumference, Coe Review, Malpais Review, Magnapoets, RHINO: The Poetry Forum,
and Sin Fronteras. His hobbies include thinking, taquitos, and waiting.
Actually, just taquitos. He lives with his wife and daughter in Las
Cruces, New Mexico.
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