Only one person knew
the second time
I had an abortion;
over the phone, we traded
calm through long-distance
shapelessness, our flattened
forms. Years later,
he and I talk about rivers
we want to visit. Again,
each other’s bodies only
near in recollection. He reads
different names into my ear:
Missouri. Platte. I offer
back: Rogue.
Oxbow. Each time I’ve been
pregnant my discovery
has felt, secretly, at first,
like an end, then, only within
the conditions of my possible,
a bright color. Here’s
a yellow boat, I say.
Here is its size. Together,
he and I see what we can.
We disbelieve a whole
country we don’t understand.
All the riverine words
(confluence, mouth) take on
new meanings now. In what
part of ourselves do we keep
them? I answer over
the phone: I don’t want
anyone to know. We pause,
recontinue: a boat,
a boat, a moving boat.