Emily Bilman’s most recent poem to appear here was “A Formal Feeling” (December 2017)

The River Enigma
By Emily Bilman

At the stake of our sanity, the waters jounced with
Tyrannical voices, near us, howling away in the park,
Voices that fought each other in the twilight
Near the zoo, behind the emptied house.

Hyenas rambled around their dens by the waterholes.
The river banks were high with wild foliage.

Ogre-like, the river swallowed our wedding ring
That returned to the river-source, the witness of our tryst,
Where our child was conceived and almost born
By the water-source that purified the passers-by.