Cistern
BY AIDAN FORSTER
Fine Arts Center, ’18
2016 Adroit Prize for Poetry: Editors’ List
It is true I drank the river water
my grandfather offered me. Yes, we knelt
before the river’s mouth
and touched our lips to it. It is true
he is still living in his body
like it’s a wooden house. He says
I should hold a gun like an infant
but treat it like an animal. And yes,
we moved from shooting Coke cans
to shooting rocks, then small animals,
then large ones. It is true I once shot
rabbits, deer, watched him peel the flesh
from the glisten of their ribs. I took
nothing from their bodies—not skin, never
bone. And yes, I learn to think of him
as more than he is. It is true. Yes, his body
tried to become less of a body and more
of a cistern. I hold his living self
underneath my tongue. I have heard
his head grows like a great white gourd
from his neck. When the river dries up
I will take all the things I love
and smash them one by one.
