River and Burn

The first time I saw you, I mean, really saw you
we were walking along the edge of the South Saskatchewan,

past the arches of the Broadway bridge, balancing on the rocks:
young and happy, broke as hell, hotter than we’d ever be again.

And a year later, that summer of knowing and not knowing,
summer of our heat and want. Summer you tired of so much

chaste yearning and led us back to the water,
our hands ecstatic, fumbling at zippers and clasps.

June of our river and burn. July of our unmakeable luck.
You in your kerchief, my long loose hair, our lives spilling out

in a tangle of red on red. You have to get through what’s wrong
to find what’s right.
Well, what if we weren’t wrong

for each other, then or now? Those two months everything
felt so complicated. Those two months nothing was complicated.

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