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# At the Drowned Valley
- URL: https://www.fsm.ink/at-the-drowned-valley/
- Published: 2024-10-15T00:12:28.000Z
- Updated: 2026-06-03T18:03:31.000Z
- Author: Staff
- Tags: Poetry, #Import 2026-08-03 09:59

by *Niina Pollari*

I need you  
But I can’t talk right now  
I know you understand  
Let’s go down to the river  
Like a pair of convalescents  
Let’s walk slowly toward the gray river  
And when we get there  
Let’s open our eyes  
Which have been closed for days  
And we can regard the gray water  
As it pulls listlessly down toward the bay  
Let the air throw birds around like manuscript pages  
Let my pain radiate from me like skin cells sloughing  
Like an automatic process  
And as I clasp my hand into yours  
Let’s close the emptiness between our palms  
And force out the distance  
Till there isn’t one

---

> Niina Pollari is a poet and Finnish translator currently located in Western North Carolina. She is the author of the poetry collections Path of Totality (Soft Skull 2022) and Dead Horse (Birds, LLC 2015), as well as the co-  
> author of the split chapbook Total Mood Killer (Tiger Bee Press 2017).  
> “At the Drowned Valley” is included in Path of Totality,  
> and is reprinted with permission by the author.  
> www.niinapollari.com