Fluvial by Sam Moe

 

Image | Chuot Anhls

Fluvial

 

1.  

Primero, he sticks a little pin in your heart

but you don’t care, you’re a crop without

guts, eel body sprouting flowers, sorry

for all the hurting and lying, but girl,

next time bring a knife.

 

And there is no way to tell this story.

In the center of her living room, a pit,

real, yawning, stretching into soft

earth, mud, meals for worms, my

god, this isn’t anther lie, no way,

there is a mother’s scream sealed

in a jar.

 

2.  

You don’t know how to break

lines, lies, wrists, but you spend

hours researching splints, fractures

something you might use as a lie

if you relapse and must work in

bandages, the lies come easily,

senselessly.

 

Black dress, pearl tugs, wishing to

be past this, high at the party, bad

but no one wants that, even hot red

tongues of cows know better than to

lick the wolves, are you pissed off

because you’re the best or the worst

version of yourself? Quíen sabe.

 

3.  

You’ve told too many people and

now it’s impossible to hide how you

love to damage yourself. How you

yourself are damaged beyond any

hope. Someone gets mad at you

for the lack; you don’t care. Roll

your eyes. Think about how lucky 

everyone is you don’t pitch a fit

at dinner.

 

Back to the pins. Hungry for riding

Crops, conversations about likeness

and lifelines, you like gentle tango

music, you miss your grandmother,

you build little poem houses around

your trauma but nothing, not even

your best efforts, can stop the blood.

 

4.  

Sorry for the bites, northerns, pikes,

largemouth, got a pair of lungs swimming

with history and sunshine, notice the

pattern, little bluegill, pequeña disculpa,

midas, bowfin, chain, golden shiner, 

time waste.

 

Pero solamente una vez quieres ser

perfecta sin dificultad, quieres lo que

quieres, en ningún orden en particular:

vivir, morir, sangre, sangria, solamente

nada, una vez.

© Sam Moe 

Sam Moe

Sam Moe is the author of six books of poetry. Her most recent collection, RED HALCYON, is forthcoming from Querencia Press in 2026. Her debut short story collection, I MIGHT TRUST YOU, is forthcoming from Experiments in Fiction in Spring 2025. She has attended the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and received fellowships from the Longleaf Writer’s conference and the Key West Literary Seminar. Sam has also received writing residencies from The Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow and Château d’Orquevau.

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