Where is the river

Fingers barely touching
trail like whispers down her cheeks
back and forth searching
for the river of her tears.

Maybe lower to her chin,
neck and fulsome breasts,
and her fingers play
softly, tenderly,
between the folds of skin
age ushered in one day.

No wetness to attest
to the presence of despair,
no dried up river bed
to show how much she cared,
and her fingers travel,
waist, belly, thighs,
to the very centre
of true womanhood.

She pauses there to think;
perhaps the river flowed
down, down, down,
to where he one day lay
unknowingly to open
the floodgates of desire.

Not now, not there;
where are they then
those accumulated tears
and she turns from this reality
to face the world of soul.

"Watch out - a river flows!"
screams the echo of her needs
and she cowers in the shadows
too exhausted to run
from unfiltered emotion
threatening to flood
and obliterate
surface composure.

Immobile she stands
remembering it all
before silently detaching
to live the way she must
in total denial of ...

the echo of her needs.