Saturday, February 1, 2020

The Flood

I had a room there all to myself.
A long black tar-topped
parking lot hugging the motel
in steaming, Summer
arms.

I watched them pull away in
the thundering, sweeping rain.
The woman and the
little girl, they held a half of
a newspaper each
over their heads.

It was a nice car, one of these
crossover/station wagons on
steroids. The wind blew the rain
sideways, ditches were overflowing.

The dad was holding
a danish, from the
continental breakfast,
when he jumped into the driver's seat.

When they pulled
The car out of the swamp
People could see their bleach white bones
falling from the broken windows.

Now none of the money
they made, none of those
great houses of love and
pain, could keep
the warm river water from 
wrapping them
in a deadly embrace.

In the dark currents at the bottom
all things are cold, the catfish's whiskers
and a hand, or a finger, or
an American-made engine.

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