LA River
by Claire Beeli
It’s never like this. Today
the water rose up to my knees
and pressed up to my hips,
circled my waist, my neck,
and slid over my head
until my crown vanished
like a quarter sinking flat from the surface.
There is never so much snow
in the mountains. Yesterday
it stumbled down from clumsy clouds and inflated the ground
until my every step had to be huge and unfurling,
arachnid. Five inches under
muffles sound better than earplugs; five feet, and sound
becomes obsolete. Before this snow,
California was a poor keeper of secrets.
There is never this much snowmelt, frigid and swinging
wildly at the world. Foaming with fear
of these marshes and foreign grasses.
Tossing up plastic tarps like great nets.
There is never so much water.
It hurls itself into the deltas
and banks, desparate to find
the ocean or just to glitter
under the sun. It inhales,
and the surface expands.