Hours later, so slowly, I walk to the river
From nowhere the wind
Floats the sound of bells toward me: circular, crystalline, impervious
I’m wearing my fluorescent orange hunter’s hat
And the acid-proof boots the Chancellor insists upon
For he claims the water’s full of mercury and fluoride
Like the hair and skin of an aging dentist
I round the last corner, I lift away
The single fir branch blocking my view
And I see a naked woman—one of the five Rachels—immersed
In the part of the river that pools, dammed by a fallen oak,
With shale steps rising on two sides
Her shoulders are slightly out of the water, and her breasts are floating
loosely
In a way that embarrasses me
She’s leaned her head against the rock shelf as if in a hot tub,
And I’m close enough to make out the freckles across her shoulders
Her eyes have been shut for some time now
I remember those eyes covered by the Chancellor’s hands
In the last gif he posted of this Rachel
She is naked
Her wounds are open
She is frantically sightlessly sanding a salad bowl
You’re so revolutionary he exhales into her ear
The forest around them flickering like television