A Way of Saying
This article originally appeared in Southern Exposure Vol. 6 No. 1, "Packaging the New South." Find more from that issue here.
to the memory of Ellen Stone Gordon, 1906-1972
Your death was like this
On the way to summer camp
We near the Pee Dee Bridge
I raise slightly my twelve year legs
To distance the trestle and water below
I consider countless rails of cool steel
Circling, winding, plumbing horizons
The feckless eye is wont to seek
From my back seat angle
I see a strand of your hair, obstinate,
Curling near your ear
I see your eye blink
Your voice familiar for the first time.
Soon I’ll study chlorophyll,
Write forlorn letters, their route home a mystery
I’ll trust, not quite believe
On the hike to Conestee
I’ll stumble among strangers
And counselors will urge me
To wade where rocks in cold streams
Tenaciously resist my toes.
And I’ll slide slide fall more quickly
Than hands can grasp, knees lock
(tree limbs just out of reach)
Below me the rocks, the water
Your death like this