by Diane Glancy
Once my brother and I were in a car
rolling down the incline to the river
where people fished.
We were children standing on the floorboard
of the back seat.
The neighbor jumped in and stopped it.
I could feel the hands of water pulling me.
Waiting till I got there to smother me.
To enter my mouth.
Water holds a grudge.
As if you call Rothko blue, blue—
because there are so many hues he used.
As it turns out
the word is much longer than we thought—
“Conversation about Dante,” Osip Mandelstam.
All these transformations from one text to another.
There is truth in multiplicity.
And so it is, I tell them when we talk—
when you hold a loaf and two little fishes
the river calls you down.
DIANE GLANCY is professor emerita at Macalester College. Her latest book, “Psalm to Whom(e),” was published by Turtle Point in 2024. Her other books are on her website, http://www.dianeglancy.com. She lives in north central Texas.
Union Spring Literary Review 