NARCISSUS RECONSIDERS

By Matthew Kelsey

I always imagined they’d take me
farther away: dismay and desire. Or

that the river—that great withholder,
older than my father’s father’s

echo—would keep what remains
of my dreams, might still gleam

as it shook, thick and slow and brown
around the bend. As a child,

I figured I’d love like water,
would love love larger, tripping my own

concentric circles of truth. But what birds
and boats and fish ever come back

transformed? Sure, sometimes
you’ll catch a rhyme in a long

line of losses. Still, the gall
to think the water would tune

its songs to my tongue. No
new time, new key. Just the signature

victor: nature over nurture, the river
mirroring me, a lost

and wretched creature.

 Matthew Kelsey is from Glens Falls, NY, and lives in Chicago. His poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Copper Nickel, Colorado Review, and elsewhere. He has received scholarships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, as well as a Writers Week Fellowship from Idyllwild Arts.