a canoe no I am on a canoe
paddling in water so deep
I lose my reflection I am paddling
no I quit paddling I lay
my paddle in the water watch
it float like a flat canoe I am
surprised not everything sinks
I stand up and the canoe shakes
it would be easy to tip it either
direction either way is water
I stand up but can’t see
the shore any clearer I take a step
in the canoe as the canoe shakes
if I fall when I fall will I float
William Fargason is the author of Velvet (Northwestern University Press, 2024) and Love Song to the Demon-Possessed Pigs of Gadara (University of Iowa Press, 2020), winner of the 2019 Iowa Poetry Prize and the 2020 Florida Book Award in Poetry (Gold Medal). His poetry has appeared in Ploughshares, The Threepenny Review, Prairie Schooner, New England Review, The Cincinnati Review, Narrative, and elsewhere. His nonfiction has appeared in Brevity, The Offing, and elsewhere. He has an MFA in poetry from the University of Maryland and a PhD in poetry from Florida State University. He lives with himself in Towson, Maryland.
