By Jeremy Nathan Marks
PROMPT—During Covid-19 ...
I am standing in the middle of the Detroit River
my mother asking me from the Michigan shore
do you know where you are over there in Canada
Do I know, mom, no, I don’t
You see
the border was not here
and then it was
and now the only time I see
you and dad and my sister
beyond the veil of satellites
screens and bandwidth
the only time our words
are not tracked is when I dream
That I am walking on water
and our nations are porous
If I could take
the ninety-percent
of my body that is water
and mingle with that river
boundary become a sea
growing between
our countries even though
the French word
étroit
still means narrow
then no border would dam me up
For the water I am now
knows better than to believe
that the water I am going to be
when I make my walk
would ever let me drown.
Jeremy Nathan Marks lives in London, Ontario. Recent work appears/will be appearing in places like So It Goes, Chiron Review, Muddy River, Isacoustic, Literary Orphans, The Blue Nib, and Right Hand Pointing.