rel="nofollow" href="#litres_trial_promo">The Girl in the River
Three A.M. and the Stars Were Out
Abandoned Still on Dismal Mountain
Good Friday, 2006: Shelton Laurel
In a Deerstand Above Goshen Creek
Resolution
The surge and clatter of whitewater conceals how shallow underneath is, how quickly gone.
Leave that noise behind. Come here where the water is slow, and clear.
Watch the crawfish prance across the sand, the mica flash, the sculpen blend with stone.
It’s all beyond your reach though it appears as near and known as your outstretched hand.
I
First Memory
Dragonflies dip, rise. Their backs
catch light, purple like church glass.
Gray barn planks balance on stilts,
walk toward the pond’s deep end.
A green smell simmers shallows,
where tadpoles flow like black tears.
Minnows lengthen their shadows.
Something unseen stirs the reeds.
The Trout in the Springhouse
Caught by my uncle
in the Watauga River,
brought back in a bucket
because some believed
its gills were like filters,
that pureness poured into
the springhouse’s trough pool,
and soon it was thriving
on sweet corn and biscuits,
guarding that spring-gush,
brushing my fingers
as I swirled the water
up in my palm cup
tasted its quickness
swimming inside me.
Milking Traces
The paths between pasture, barn
were no straight lines but slow curves
around a hill that centered
thirty acres. To a child
those narrow levels seemed like
belts worn on the hill’s bulged waist,
if climbed straight up, tall steps for
stone Aztec ruins—though razed
each time dawnlight peaked landrise,
belts and steps became sudden
contrails from planets circling
the sun’s blaze, planets disguised
with cow hide, the furrowed skin
of an old woman’s visage.
Sleepwalking
Strange
