Any river carries the shapes of all the bodies 
only so long as the bodies remain.
 
Remove flesh from river, let the divers 
recover—and the river heals itself, 
 
refuses to imagine the next one 
who jumps or slips or is thrown—
 
In this way is a book like love: It will hold 
the memory of the bodies—be infused, absolute. 
 
Burn them, send the ash to fall from the sky 
and still—
 
Ash arrives at the river and the river 
makes way. The ash tastes of fire
 
and the river wonders about burning—
this thing it can see, but never have, never be.