Featured Poem

Rising out of the Flash Flood

Trina Gaynon

That looks an awful lot like Aunt Donna’s trailer

floating down the river. I play the video

over and over on youtube, watching for a bit

of my teenage years to wash out of the banks

when Trace Creek overruns.

Didn’t I bury those years high enough

on the bluff? Back yonder where the oak trees

get swept from their anchor holds, where drowning

happens to spiders that overran cemeteries

and children who can find no handholds.

My feet firmly on the ground, I remember

how Denver, built down in a hollow, would flood.

The school bus would turn around at the fork

in the mud road and leave the Purdy family

kids on the other side of the wash.

That was where kids played hooky in May,

Ditch Day a ritual no one asked me to join.

They jumped off logs into the water.

I wouldna never. Swimming a feat beyond

my bookish abilities.

So I watch a double-wide trailer, just slightly tilted,

swept away by a torrent of water. I remember

it’s been over a decade since Uncle Larry died

of asbestos exposure and Aunt Donna left

their home for assisted living.

Those creeks tumble into the rivers without us.

Rivers dump into the Kentucky Lake, and pay us

no mind. There in middle Tennessee, family watches

from hillside perches, buried behind churches

at the top of rolling hills.

Originally appeared in Glacial Hills Review, 2023.