September 8, 2014 | Occasus | Issue 4 | Poetry

Sleeping in the River

Fishing under the bridge:
Miramichi River printing out
pages of history.

Don’t eat the catfish, give it to Chappy.
Frenchman, grizzled beard, body
like an eyebeam.

Pulled into the river by
Poseidon, rod bent into letters.
Pike, spiked teeth—this we can eat.

What’s the field? How long will you be gone?
Why do you have to go? Is mom going?
I want to be airborne too.

Months measured by how close retinas
came to window panes, through haze
and rain, in Oromocto.

He came back with wings, beret
regimented the hairs of his scalp.
We slept in the river.


We’re an empty boat floating like
a carcass. Oars are dead roots
trailing like a seagull too far out.
One half died and the other decays,
still struggling to get his head under
the water to breathe a new world
familiar again. He sleeps suspended
from the ceiling by fishing lures
pulling his skin to points like
mountain peaks, or pieces
of himself trying to escape.
The other is a bunch of neurons
happy to have you inside, making
tea for the guest, compliments the smile.
Scuttles in the bed of Lake Erie,
pulling the blanket high over his
nose. You taste his memory
in every fish I bring back from
a lonely fishing trip, where two feet
comforted each other in the mud,
singing Lyin’ Eyes, like we did in
that truck stop. Now, we sleep
in the river.

JOSH GARRETT is currently an undergrad at the University of Western Ontario. His major is Bioarchaeological Anthropology; his minors are Writing Studies and the Philosophy of Science. He's an avid writer of poetry, and enjoys writing about anything from physics to bus stops. Whatever sounds cool at the moment.