| Flood The river swells, breaks the hymen of its bank. It bleeds over crops in channels the plough carved like a child gripping the ground so hard that fingernails snap, leaving only quick to recover after the battering is done. I watch my father ferry blocks of bales from the barn to back up the front line. They stack erect like fat golden soldiers protecting their wheaten children. In the evening I put his cold ink blue overalls onto the wooden slatted drying rack and raise them like a sodden flag over the Rayburn. My mother stands next to me, her tears are lines of slug mucus. S.J. Lister |
If you have any comments on this poem, S.J.Lister would be pleased to
hear them.
