Silt and Lanterns

At low tide the river shows its seams, its silt-gold notebooks, folded and still. I learned to read the water there by the lanterns fishermen hung on poles, each flame a patient vowel waiting to be carried downstream. No one spoke above a whisper. Even the oars entered softly, as if the current were sleeping and might wake if addressed too sharply. So we let the dark keep its blue shawl, and the banks kept their rows of reeds, and my heart, once scattered, found its place in the measured light. By morning the lamps were gone, but the river still remembered them, small suns tucked beneath its skin.