Meeting in Troublesome Creek

Ann Thornfield-Long

 

It pours all day. At night a Banshee

flood gnashes, mangles.

 

White noise wailing, begging,

its arms raised pounding on the door.

 

I hold the kerosene lamp atop the cedar 

chest of drawers the heavy piece 

 

I hope won’t move if the black blood

of water seeps in.

 

I fear I’ll wash away.

My poor dog’s gone, the chickens too.

 

Boulders like the slick back

of strong man John Henry Davis,

 

come rumbling down the creek

ebony skin, slick as oiled eels.

 

How can I stand or slide between

those breakers wanting my old bones?

 

At first light I grab a jacket, waders,

try to clean debris

 

from around the house where Revis 

greased, clamped and welded

 

in the old garage; coaxed rotors 

and brushes to rise again

 

to second life, a motor revived.

 

It’s deep. Cold water sloshes 

in at my waist.

 

The weight drags me downstream

feet first. I’m freezing, weak.

 

How can I clear

out this old stream? I cling 

 

to a chewed rag doll its yellow hair…

but wait! Who’s there?

 

Revis! I scream. He comes! 

 

I stand, then fall, and that is all 

there is…except his arms.

Ann Thornfield-Long is a writer and poet living in East Tennessee. A retired nurse and first responder, she has work in Still: The Journal, Pine Mountain Sand and Gravel, Artemis and other publications.