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.