After the river rose above its banks, after the farms
and fields and yards
were drowned and drained again, all
was fish-strewn, stump- and root-strewn,
besotted. Here and there,
pieces of an upriver town—light blue ice tray
bird house, the town clerk—also litter the pastures.
Aerial photos (all is mud now, no water for boats,
no ground to walk on) show
us this, the helicopter dropping close
to look for anything alive.
The town clerk’s blue shirt blooms.
He drank deep of the waters and mud.
The river recedes now, back between,
then below, its banks,
and recedes still more, drains to the stones,
then through the bedrock beneath its sand,
stones, oh, it sinks,
the river, it’s gone,
and then the banks close like the lips of a wound,
leaving a sandy scar
along the bottom of our valley
for miles, miles.
Originally Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 2.
