Drowning In Pairs
You're carrying your puppy
past the skunk cabbage and pokeberries,
the one with the terminal condition
a missing branch off the heart,
you'd glady give her yours
but you're only a Southern girl
of Georgia Knowles and cricket dreams,
a girl with damaged blood supply,
a pink shell of a heart
at times
a loss of pulse.
You gently hold her above the brook
that reflects the aspens and cassias
the deep blue maddening of the sky.
Damn God. And damn his shunted creations.
You swore you'd never get this close
to such a creature in need.
Your plan is to drown her,
but the thought of bubbles
stirring, clamoring to the surface
and your own reflection
you'll try hard to avoid
and you know
you'll be drowning
together.
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Kyle Hemmings lives north of the Mason-Dixon Line in what is called New Jersey. He skateboards near Branch Brook Park, falls, and sometimes doesn't get up.