“ONE RIVER”
words and reading by Rah Diaz
Filmed at the Coachella Valley Art Center.

Sounds like a river
while she walks across a plaid comforter
just hours earlier
sitting on the banks of the Ohio
Sounds like a river
playing touch and go
with low hanging brown leaf branches
where the only things that lived
along this chilly Midwest doorway
were emotion
and the cry of owls
somewhere in the bare trees
I, lost in this rapture
lost balance
She, grabbed and lost my hand
before I fell in
We, now walking back
Ohio River dripping from my clothes
and her nonstop
laughter
echoing through the woods
Sounds like a river
I let her know
as it’s rushing water singsong
played in the distance
barely audible
to the soaring birds high above us
beyond our dirty window panes
and aged stones
Her muffled giggles sweet
as she hung wet clothes to dry.