Old Men

by Rob Rice

Fluency of rivers at night when they don’t need to be and no one’s listening.

A dark blue towards purple, surface butter-knife-hot-butter flat and satisfying like spreading it.

Scraping the bottom: probably all it can hear. Total self-hatred of rivers because erosion of fleeting friendships with the shore and its supportive belly. Facing backwards, crying and dragged away, too slow thinking and too fast gone too far to wave.

Ashamed, memory of all the scars.

Rubs it in: species’ reverence for the view.