Lost Creek

Carol Krauss

 

A sycamore is crafted to hold the creek bank, twisted hands

against the waters, keeper of the darters, the shiners. A shade 

 

for a boy and his Pap-paw, as they fish midday, most July days. 

Not that day. Even the sycamores let go. The silt ponds, the streams 

 

of splintered doll houses, and wedding day photos, rushed over root knees, 

knots of tangled fishing lines. The creek forgot its banks, the darters 

 

swam porch stoops. Drushal church bulletins were entangled 

in sycamore limbs while broken tackle boxes littered River Caney Road.

 

The line

between the creek and land–was lost.

Carol Krauss’s work has found homes in Quartet, Salvation South, Eclectica, & Porchlight Magazine. Fernwood Press published her full-length book (Mountain.Memory.Marsh.) in 2025. Carol graduated from Clemson University. This English teacher was born in S.C. to N.C. mountain people and lives in Virginia with her Saint Bernard.