A person wades waist-deep into a stream and sees, in a mirrored, jelly-like eye, an image that hooks both observer and fish. The river's slow, swollen surface flows black and heavy around the legs and throws back ripples that suggest inward thoughts. A lifetime of hardened guilts, petty sins, self-pities, lost places, and maimed bones pushes through the heart like poisoned blood. In a gorgeous summer air the face of death briefly gasps and flashes, incongruous and unfit, then slips away as the water returns to sunken leaves, rolled stones, high sky, and fragile bright grass.
Waist deep one day in a stream,I caught a glimpsein the mirrored jelly of an eyethat barbed us bothwhen bucking out the buried hook.The surface of the river in itsslow and swollen glideflowed black and heavyround my legs,sucking at my boots,throwing backwhat looked upon it ripplesebbing past, flickeringsof inward thoughts
the flow of years had passed-hard-bitten guilts, pet sins,self-pities, lost lands,mauled bones, exit wounds-pushing through the heart,poisoning the blood, poking out.In the gorgeous summer air,between the slip and squeeze,it gasped, and flashedthe face of death,unfit for this temporary mess,and then, like that, was backamong the sunken leaves,rolled stones, high sky, bright grass-shimmering, fragile as a glass.
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