Self-Portrait as The River Floods
       

Snow chokes this town like a plague.
Slumped walls of white,
every corner clotted. March
comes in dazed—the sun
a weak rumor, quivering
hills, a just-begun dream
of runoff. I go back
years to the town of high ground,
that first yard necklaced by creek
and stone, berries brambling
down the backyard hill.
I go back—crocus
striving through snow,
all the orchards waiting
to blush then break
open. Now I know
not to sink too deep in the folds
of the bed, that even floors
can wander. Nights
of crest and sandbag,
the borrowed bridge
to safe ground swamped
by morning. I go down
to watch the water's surge
and spoils—there goes our table,
there, the spare key, there go
the stories I told them.
The children are growing
long and ravenous.
What can I build
that will hold?

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Copyright © 2021 Molly Spencer All rights reserved
from Hinge
Southern Illinois University Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission