A Poem by Catherine Gander

Self-Portrait as Flood Plain

My body is a landscape

diluvian changed

these thighs are waterways                

for fish that flicker

the meanders of my hips

lose themselves in

shadows          map beginnings        erosions.

My body is a terrain                of migrations

     channel-braided             alluvial

unconsolidated.          

It has felt the burr       and heartsweep rush of           geese lifting

from its oxbow lakes                          held gold

in its deltas

brought prospectors to its banks

thirsted and slaked thirst alike.

This is what happens              when a landscape       

is both bed

and confluence            source

and flood plain            one body

overflows into

another                       

carries music into

mouths and valleys

opens embouchures to sing            in polyphonic

praise            a body             deluged                      

sacred

uncontained

Catherine Gander is a poet, critic, scholar, and artist. She was born in Middlesex, England, has lived in many countries and now resides in Ireland, where she teaches at Maynooth University and runs the Maynooth Poetry and Poetics series (with Karl O’Hanlon), and the mentorship programme Diversifying Irish Poetry (DIP). Her words and art can be found or are forthcoming in Ink, Sweat & Tears, Abridged, Juniper, One Hand Clapping, Poetry Ireland Review, The Wolf, The Madrigal, Irish Times, and many other publications.