When You Meet the Roma at the River
your face translates
for river and ever
translates your fate
sign her your sins
and ever forgiver
sings she your sins
pay her your pay
for debtors endeavor
to spit in the river
your sins will be
and severed forever
spat into river
unlike the river
a mirror reflecting
its framing forever
your sins will be
just spit in the river
you’ll probably live
Copyright © 2016 Philip Metres. “When You Meet the Roma at the River” originally appeared in Pictures at an Exhibition (University of Akron Press, 2016). Used with permission of the author.
Philip Metres
Philip Metres was born on July 4, 1970, in San Diego and grew up in the suburbs of Chicago. In 1992, he graduated from College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts and received his PhD in English and an MFA in creative writing from Indiana University in 2001.