Carol Berg's work has appeared in Two Serious Ladies, Jet Fuel Review, Spillway, and elsewhere. Her two other chapbooks, Small Portrait and The Woman Holding A Flood In Her Mouth (Binge Press), are forthcoming.
The River Offers A Ring To Ophelia
What language could I speak, but of clarity,
of seeing through? Not true—I spoke
the language of nudity. The language of all
rivers is lust. I licked Ophelia’s calf, flesh
the color of peaches rinsed in rain. She dipped
her hand inside of me. I played in and out with
shadows her fingers made in my swirls.
I fixated a fish within the sunlight’s freckles.
She was unwary of the layering I could perform.
The black of tree trunks twirling toward
the orange autumn light seduced the sky.
But I know when to change perspective. I lured
her vision with my movements. My slow
hushed touch. I jiggled the little white pebbles.
Little moon stones. They looked like pearls.
She kept reaching for another. And another.
