Walking the crude rock
dam above the
rapids. Why are you
doing it?—
you might fall,
drown,
arms useless
as wings.
You can’t turn back,
others are
watching. And
such slow
water above the dam
like thin slee-
ping mud.
That summer smell.
Sun-bleached rock,
duckweed in
clots. Dead bull-
heads,
clams. Waste
from outhouses up-
stream and you’ve been
warned but
you can’t turn back
and when you step
on the island it’s
nothing of course—
a single scrub willow,
roots exposed,
dying. And that stink.
And broken glass.
And your eyes seared
from sun.
And across the rapids
your five-year-old brother
wading staring
and the others calling
scornful
of all you’ve dared
and how small the island
and
the other bank so far away,
looking new, altered,
like a dream you can’t
recall.
And you knew going back
was more than
you could do.
You knew.