Round

Round

as red as to lose
and as round as to find
--e. e. cummings

Trout leap from the Poudre River,
brief rosy flash, then the splash ripples
while I listen to you

as you twist the new ring you bought
because you couldn't stop touching
the empty place,

and you take it off and hand it to me.
New green lines the banks;
green bugs the trout desire

hover just out of reach.
I'm trying to leap
into what I need, letting my body

arch over the current
we're moving in, then drop,
staying with the must be,

with the big red oh
of the open mouth:
the muscular zero of it.

--Mary Crow

Reprinted from I Have Tasted the Apple.
Poems by Mary Crow.
BOA Editions, Ltd., Brockport, NY, 1996.
Copyright (c) 1996 by Mary Crow.
Posted over on Vintage Colorado Poetry