River
BY WILLIAM FARGASON
Lord I trust you I trust
myself not to trust you
when the snow laces the powerline
the window and even my hand
against the glass doesn’t melt it
my heart is so far from the river
I swam in as a kid its crawfish
we would find under the rocks
the chill on our skin of the cold water
Lord I felt your presence there
in the banked mud against
my feet were you there with me
Lord I used to speak to you
in the dark of my bedroom
you are the father who never
comes home from work I want
to say I love your voice even though
I can’t hear it I have forgotten
how to pray except during panic
Lord I don’t want only to feel
close to you when I think I’m dying
I want a river covered in
snow I want a knock on the door
A Silverfish in the Childhood
BY WILLIAM FARGASON
picture of my father pressed in the glass
my father’s year-old face soft focus
and bodiless his teeth coming in I tap the glass
the silverfish’s small body doesn’t move
doesn’t fall to the wood frame as I’d expect
looks more like a tiny lobster than an insect
who survives between books on a shelf
its dead body a temporary monument
in the museum of my family on the wall
of what was my sister’s bedroom the silverfish
an insect who eats paper to live no history is safe
from this centimeter of grey dust that sought out
this picture as its meal that only thought of
a way in but not a way out in the edge
of the photo the year 1959 the silverfish
tried to consume that year corner by corner
reverse the past or at least its representation
my father’s young brain forming each fold
learning from his father which family member
was okay to hit my father’s childhood
a broken branch he would break into smaller pieces
over his knee if only that silverfish
could’ve eaten those days before they happened
stopped my inheritance if only it could’ve
spared me wrath a smiling baby who’d grow up
to throw in a fit whatever was closest
at children who’d grow up to rub my back
during the sermon who’d search for the knot
the old-testament God and the new-testament God
are the same God the same package deal
if only that silverfish could’ve made it across
the picture across the soft hair on my father’s brow
I had a chance not to be here standing in front
of this picture I could’ve not been here that erasure
wanting its help wanting to fade
from the frame I could’ve not been here
I could’ve been paper passed through a body
