Night Crossings
I’ve a notion about dreams:
They’ve mapped all the rivers
of debt and duty I thought
I’d put behind me.
I wade the shallow Chickasawhay
in July or August. Its warm currents
have carved soft cliffs of white sand
that shift under my bare feet. My jeans
are wet up to my knees. I awake
to the Monday after vacation.
Last night I trembled shivering
on a granite shelf in the French Broad.
It roared and rushed and hissed and tumbled,
primal in the power it steals from winter rains
that fall upstate. As far as I could see ahead,
every ledge and stone and rock funneled
sluices of black, sucking water.
I awoke. The river quieted.
I’ll put a check in the mail.
