JENNY GODWIN

PROMISE ME WATER

Raging river benediction,

flow fed by mountains finally

bowled with their snow.

I won’t call it a blessing

if you don’t want

me to, but it is.

Won’t hold your hands like

a prayer, but I’m praying.

Won’t drink like it’s holy

but my mouth already

knows the honor.

Foam a different type

of nourishment,

this alluvial sweetness.

Break this drought,

my body opens.

Count the days of

rain, medicine to

our thirsty souls, the soil.

Explain to me how

this land has no spirit.

Tell me you’ve never sang

here, never laughed

with raw awe.

Too late, the river

has anointed your body.

Promise me when it comes.

Promise me, water.

Jenny Godwin is a recent transplant to Denver, jotting poems on long bus rides to her graduate program and weekends spent hiking in the mountains. Her writing is rooted in the landscape, centered on places and homes that have changed how she moves through the world. She’s learning that a place-based poet has to be flexible and adaptable in an era so susceptible to environmental and social change. Her poetry has appeared in Scribendi Literary Magazine and Tule Review.