The River Ván

The River Ván

They say Fenrir’s drool
was called
Hope.
Not the hymn type, not
what you whisper over
a child’s forehead,
but the foam
that fights that
bit in the jaw,
that slick refusal to lie still,
even after the prophecy has been cast.

Hope is not clean.
It leaks.
Stains the pillow
and the inside of the mouth.
It's the inadvertent twitch of a worm
after it’s been cut
in half.
Even in death,
the most wretched of creatures
hold onto a reflex for life.

I noticed her first from her cane,
a slender piece of oak propping up
what the body couldn’t.
She had 6 months to live 20 years ago
the husband whispered to me,
as we sat
quietly, politely,
staring at magazines that we
didn’t have the heart to read.

It’s as impossible as capturing
the sound of a cat’s footfall,
a woman’s beard,
the roots of a mountain,
bear’s sinew, fish’s breath, bird’s spittle.
And isn’t that a little like hope too?
Made up of things
we swear don’t exist,
but somehow hold us
to the end.