The Vermilion River

Julia Doctoroff

If I were a river and you
fell in with that girl,

the one you say is not important.
I would not stir my currents around you
because I would have my invertebrates

twisting circles in my sediment.
I would hold their lives between my banks.
You would have an ecosystem of two:
those never survive.

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Julia Doctoroff grew up in San Francisco, California. She will graduate from Oberlin College in Spring 2007. She loves bears, California, and short poetry.