"'Jeux d’eau'" by Aaron Caycedo-Kimura

Jeux d’eau

            flowed from your fingers

                                   spilled over the keys

                                                           off the stage        Once we stood

                                               on Sheely Bridge    spanning

                       the Roaring Fork in Aspen

An embrace    nothing much to say

                                   we watched the water rushing

                                                           toward us        We turned

                                               to the other side    but didn’t like

                                   that view of the river        No longer

                       a musician    I drag my brush

                                               across blank canvas    drip

                                                           streams of thinned burnt umber

                                   No matter which way one looks

                                                                              the river’s always leaving

Aaron Caycedo-Kimura

Aaron Caycedo-Kimura is a writer and visual artist. He is the author of two poetry books: the full-length collection Common Grace (Beacon Press, 2022) and Ubasute, winner of the 2020 Slapering Hol Press Chapbook Competition. His honors include a MacDowell Fellowship, a Robert Pinsky Global Fellowship in Poetry, a St. Botolph Club Foundation Emerging Artist Award in Literature, and nominations for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best New Poets anthologies. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Beloit Poetry Journal, Plume Poetry, Poetry Daily, RHINO, Pirene’s Fountain, Salamander, Cave Wall, Shenandoah, and elsewhere. Aaron earned his MFA in creative writing from Boston University and is also the author and illustrator of Text, Don’t Call: An Illustrated Guide to the Introverted Life (TarcherPerigee, 2017).

Headshot: Luisa Caycedo-Kimura

Photo Credit: Staff