Mary Anne Reese is a poet and attorney who was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, and now lives in Cincinnati, Ohio. Her poetry chapbook is Raised by Water (Finishing Line Press). She has also published poems in anthologies and magazines including Sojourners and The Licking River Review. She has an M.A. in English with a concentration in creative writing from Northern Kentucky University.


When the Raft Flips

                        Ocoee River, 1984

 

Cold water tastes
like iron, fast currents
push, eddies
twist. My shin scrapes
rock. I pass
into the black beneath
a bridge. Shouts
echo. I smell mud. Falls
roar. My body drops

in a liquid
avalanche. I stare
through a sepia
blur. I cannot breathe.
Water pummels
me. I pull my arms
and kick, turn
somersaults, close
my eyes and dream
I swallow air. 

 

 

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