11 March 2018

The urge to row,
mornings, that summer,
was about denial.
He did not want
life at university to be over.
He did not want
to enter the workforce.
He would take the year off
before he began
the long climb upward,
to what?
He still hadn’t decided
beyond rowing
after the morning he made
the decision to travel,
to test the waters of distant rivers.
He would row those rivers
he liked the sounds of the names of:
The Tallahatchie, the Guadalquivir, the Indus.
He had come too late
to row the Meander.
He would avoid the Styx,
as long as possible.
The “Street” would have to wait.
His blood ran rivers.

Philip Kuepper
(23 February 2018)