For the first issue of the new year, our theme is reach. Something about this word feels like a tiny victory; can’t the effort be the reward? Next month, we keep

reaching.

Submission guidelines can be found here.

‘Reach’

def.

1. a continuous extent of water, especially a stretch of river between two bends

2. debatable, contestable, dubious

e.g ‘His poem followed the theme, even if it was a bit of a reach’

(poem below)

Body Under Heaven

New in an old country, you came
to the river to give it its name

Once it was known as Laden With Flowers
then Of The Red Song
then Which Runs Over Bones 
then Dilution Of Holy Oil, 
but the river was never one thing

Not on the bank
where reeds grew
where the young
voles rats shrews
were taught to swim
where the river slowed
to a stagnant pulse
vile with algae
rotting petals, fruit
the temptation of sugar
for birds and children
whose mothers swore them away

Nor down the centre,
where the river scurried
over the rocks
which it covered
which frothed it pale
beneath which
sheep deer fox
woman man
clung to the riverbed
their polished outlines

the very idea of them
pinned fast to
a future they shared
with the butterflies
which flitted above

You lay on the bank
and looked at the sky
and thought of the sea
and if the river could
claim to be a god
whether that made it
your god and whether
there was a difference

When you awoke the stars
were a blizzard of signs
waylaid by the scorn
you felt for the world
you saw for the wound
it was, and before long
the many named river
was left only one
slung across time
like a drooping garland.