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Friday, July 22, 2016

Immersion by Elodie Pritchartt



Like teabags poised
 1
over the roiling water,
 2
we dangled, by turns,
 3
from a rope.
 4
Pushed off the roof
 5
of the boat,
 6
swung out and dropped
 7
into the muddy mug
 8
of the Mississippi
 9
only to emerge
 10
laughing
 11
surprised
 12
at having survived
 13
the fall.
 14
Little mud mustaches
 15
etched the sepia
 16
memories of
 17
that river
 18
that day
 19
that summer
 20
that childhood
 21
into our skin.
 22
Now the sandbars
 23
whose soft embrace
 24
showed us the way
 25
rarely surface --
 26
the channel and our veins
 27
silted
 28
with the detritus
 29
of forty years.
 30
We have reunions,
 31
make note
 32
of those not there.
 33
Search name tags
 34
for faces
 35
we no longer
 36
recognize.
 37
We bury
 38
parents
 39
friends
 40
and fears
 41
of the undertow
 42
as the bank sloughs
 43
each spring
 44
rechannels
 45
our expectations
 46
and we emerge
 47
laughing
 48
surprised
 49
at having survived
 50
at all.
 51