Luckett Creek, 2010
It might be that sprawl crept, stealthy
as a cat stalking a meadowlark. It might
be black magic, this vanishing, tragedy abrupt
and permanent as a combine-severed hand.
It might be like this: In the dream
she leaves the light of the fire.
As her eyes adjust to darkness she sees
what she could not see before–gaunt
vixen, her starving kits. It might be
such vanishing happens, hidden
behind a curtain dropped after the last act,
stagehands removing meadow
and lake. The blue roan
only a painted prop. It might be
like the kettle boiling dry,
its acrid hissing, its scorched sides,
its bottom pocked and blackened.
It might be like the morning she,
rubbing sleep from her eyes, refused
to recognize her two sons—tattooed,
bearded men in the kitchen.
It might be without remedy, this grief,
incurable as colic, maddening
as a writhing roan’s tangled colon,
undeniable as death, solid as the steep,
concrete sides of the ditch she finds
where Luckett Creek once rushed.
