My Children Should Know

hope is a starry sky.
It’s never been a question of love, 
it’s been there all along like a boat rudder:
attached, steering. Love, like a still river
surface that moves subtly, carrying 
everything: the log and the leaf, the tossed plastic.
I, too, am a river that carries. 
I’d hoped you 
could fish and feed from 
my narrow channel.
I’d hoped you could bob in my waters,
not drown in an eddy.
It’s never been a question of love.
Hope doesn’t make a river inviting, 
or rise. It is only the rain, giving 
itself away freely.