A Girl Named River

Her name was River.
She was young
and lithe,
her long hair
streaming
down her back.
In the village,
where she
appeared
one autumn,
there was a
definite
shortage
of men.
One day,
the sun glinting
off his shiny
bald head
outside the
bakery,
she told him
he was cute
while he
blushed
and
shuffled and
stammered.

Soon
they were
together,
through the
single
most glorious
winter
of his life.

But in the spring,
she grew
restless.
Rivers
have a way of
moving on.

Years later,
he remembers
that lost love,
the intensity
and suddenness
of passion
that awakens one
from long slumber,
and that
devastates
when
just as quickly
it is
gone.