And a river went out of Eden

Today, the riverbank
is gray, and the moss
pale. The indifferent
water rushes its dark
swirls past limestone
rocks. Black & white
breeze, flushed of its
soft green; the birds,
robbed of their song.

When I think of you
I am torn. Between
heart and intellect:
geography of grief,
landscape of ecstasy,
I see you ogling me
then turning away
inside my mind’s eye.
I am beaten, without

mercy, into the past
when you once were
my sanity. But now
I’ve faded into the gray
hiss of dark water
snaking beneath my feet.