J. Alan Nelson Time Velocities You’re sure the Brazos is a jocose river. The river is funny you state with a snort. The engines push the Brazos Queen, wooden paddles turn as you whistle a tune. A girl sits on the bridge at twelve. She reads a book as she eats from a sack. You tell her the humor of the river rock cliffs rising on the Balcones fault line, plains stretching to the nuclear plant Bosque waters joining the Brazos waters at the bend, and the beaver that swam the river one night, flat tail cutting a luciferous wake, as you called beaver in the river and she marks an ancient canto with her finger and laughs with the river. |