What the River Kept

The St. Lawrence held my name
before I learned to say it—
each syllable a small stone
turned smooth by passage.

My mother spoke French to the current,
English to the shore,
and I grew up bilingual
in the language of leaving.

There is a word in neither tongue
for the way water remembers
every hand that touched it
and still runs clear.

I have been the river.
I have been the stone.

Most days I am the silence
between them—
the breath before the body
learns to let go.