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Water, rising.

By Sally Stewart Mohney

for Vinings

Waking in the night to a thunder-full
of dark. Green stage rises as you sleep,
crests a high angry orange. Rushing sluice
groans and juices over moss banks. River feels
coarse grain of pasture grass on its underbelly.

Horses pulled from half-graze. Neighbors in
sudden red kayaks witness mattresses, chairs
and sofas tossed in a slow, painful ballet. Stormwater

mud-gullies into your street belly-level. Like watershed
creatures, you find alternate egress. Folks collect in pluff
mud at tide's edge to watch churn boil: dam of net,
leaves, rope. Warped door. Pool toys. Hopeful raft.

Copters cast shaking shadows. Your fingers trace
the dull floodmark on a bowering honeysuckle stand,
nurse the remains.