started to flow when I was thirteen —it grew between me and my mother.I saw the jaguar bathe in the shallows.The caiman with his crown of horsefliesaccepted me as a friend.He led me to the swift centrewhere night hawks roosted on driftwood,raised their sleepy eyelids, and were notangered by my presence.They were forest-dreamingas the current took me in its armsand whispered encouragement.My mother’s chair seemed further awayon the far bank and I could no longerhear the words that stung. The riverglittered with waves and eachwas a picture I could paintor a book I could write. It wasas if I’d entered a new elementand could breathe water. My feettouched the bottom where stonestold me their stories and I listened.Capybaras barked a welcomeand even the cowbirds on their backsgurgled as they plucked botfliesfrom their mounts. I plungedinto the fertile world and swam to safety.I wrapped each wave around my necklike a shawl of sunlight.The anaconda swam with meand every scale was a make-up mirrortelling me I wasn’t ugly.My brown eyes were not cow-shitbut clean as the harpy eagle’s,morphos drank my tearsand fluttered on my lashes —everywhere I looked I saw my futurewas gilded blue. My black hairmother had cropped to my scalpgrew into ringlets of vineson which jacamars and tanagers perched.Marmosets played in the coils and made me laugh.When I floated on my back,my breasts were two turtles dryingtheir shells on a mudbank.And when the jaguar dived beneath meand lifted me up into the lightI clung to his back and rode my life.
The River
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Copyright © 2024 by Pascale Petit.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.
Derrick Kakembo
Pascale Petit was born in Paris and lives in Cornwall. Her ninth poetry collection, Beast, published by Bloodaxe in 2025, is a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. Her debut novel, My Hummingbird Father, was published by Salt in 2024. She has published nine poetry collections, four of which were shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize. Mama Amazonica won the Ondaatje Prize and Laurel Prize for ecopoetry. Her eighth, Tiger Girl, was shortlisted for the Forward Prize and for Wales Book of the Year. Her poems have been widely published, including in Poetry, American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, The Poetry Review, TLS, and Poetry London.
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