CHALLIARD ROAD
By Clyde Kessler

A boy I know slogged into flooded Challiard Road.
Denny Hale found the body a quarter mile downstream,
wrapped in water willow.

I dream he looks through the fog like an old man,
hearing every minute of spring

as it swallows him with coolness
and the drift of town light merging into the river
and a slow earth music
touring through his family.

His face is waking the leaves of a sycamore,
and maybe his mind is reaching inside
something that dreams me waking.

His folks asked once for a tune,
and I couldn’t fiddle a song for him.
My fingers moved like grass blades
caught in sleet.