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Walk on Water

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.


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