Orion

Stars rising like something said, something never
To be forgotten, shining forever—look

How still they are.

                Blind hunter crawling
Toward sunrise, then healed. 

He opened his eyes to find her waiting

—Afraid—and together they traveled
Lightly: requiring nothing

But a sense that the road beneath them stretched
Forever. At the edge

He entered the water, swam so far
That he became a speck: his body

Washed ashore, then raised to where we see it now—
The belt, the worn-out sword. I'm not

Afraid—

Except that there is nothing beneath us,
No ground without fear. The body vulnerable

—You can look at me—

The body still now, never
Changing, rising forever—stay—

Like something said.

From Fleet River by James Longenbach. Copyright © 2003 by James Longenbach. Reprinted by the University of Chicago Press. All rights reserved.