3/23/14 in Poems with punchlines

Today I drove over Seven Mile River, and I remembered every other river I've ever known. I thought of the Charles on a Saturday night, surface wrinkled like yesterday's pantyhose, stitched in on both sides with bike paths and pedestrians. The Green River, whose name we knew before seeing the sign; water so verdant we pulled over in a cow field to take pictures and smell the oxidation. The Connecticut River, a shoelace weaving back and forth across the state, thin and silty, wide banks home to turf farms and witch hunts.