The Water Bearer

this land belonged to the 
lenape, the Susquehannock, 
the massawomeck — long 
before you were born. 

and they had names for water:
moi, oneega, o:ne:ka’. names for
mountain and for mud. they spoke
a polysynthetic syntax, now frag
-mented, not unlike their people. 

but language, like the dinosaurs —
like parents — can become extinct, 

can leave traces: the not-quite
noumena, the narrows, a word
water- wind-gap carved through
tuscarora quartzite, proving 
presence with absence. 

these same landscapes made
you. this mid-atlantic geography
of arundale clay and Gettysburg
shale — of fossilized stone of
star-tooth sauropod — built up
your bones. a bloodline more
ancient than the old line. for 

you are of the sisku hanne, a
slow-moving muddy river 
swirling with alluvium. you are of the floodplains embracing 
a drowned river valley. 

you are of the youghiogheny, an
affluent river flowing in a contrary direction. you are carving a waterline
of transgressions, with more twists and turns than an oxbow — and i’m 

wading through your brackish waters, swept along the rapids toward a watershed-sink where everything you
touch inevitably meets its end. 

and when you open your lips to speak, it’s with a tangled tongue heavy with words that spill like streams from your deepwater delta mouth.

***

The line “you are carving a waterline of transgressions” is adapted from the poem “exhibits from The American Water Museum” by Natalie Diaz.

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Natalye Childress is a writer, an editor, and author of The Aftermath of Forever (Microcosm Publishing). She lives in Berlin, Germany. Find her at natalye.com or @deutschbitte.