Water rushes forth
cutting through the landscape
tearing down trees…

In my youth
we would gather there.
That was ‘base.’
Some perversion in the soil
grew it awkward
and preserved it.
There was no other of its like
we’d count,

                “One”

                “Two”

                “Three”
Turn and lay low any who moved.

…bushes, plants
gnashing at them
with a hurricane of white caps,
roiling top soil;
the mangled limbs of old oaks.
The flood consumes the forest
but is unsated,
cartwheeling down the street…

We rode our bikes,
cards in the spokes,
three abreast;
like we each had
a full tank of gas, no curfew.
        some of us didn’t
and only went home
when no one was left
to muffle the night.

Taking with it loose sheets of concrete
gauging them out with the dead ends
of what once was a forest
only a few short moments ago.
As if on a mission
                  serving a purpose
the torrent sprints down main street
a feral beast of a cat
on the serengeti
ignoring all the buildings that lined its path
driven only to one end;
to take down the theater.

In the darkness
outside of time
fantasy becomes tangible
while reality falls away
like sheets of snow
from a hot tin roof.
Captured in that web
I am what I am meant to be
until the lights come on.

It may have been the first to go,
but the flood took the whole town
              and discarded in its place
              a lake

When winter comes
and hides it all beneath ice
          we drill holes
          drink til we are warm
          and toss in a line
      only once in awhile terrified
                        that we’ll pull up
                        some part of that old life.