Pearl Thompson

Mills College, Oakland, California

 

catch and release – a ghost story

log jams unseen underwater obscured

turbulence - the reflection of clouds

tricky swift undercurrents swirl

invisible to the eye ashore and at a distance

dragged under: the boy in the life jacket whom we cried about over the landline

tossed against the rocks: the girl I had never met, but we were both thirteen at the time

—-

you swim up and down rivers and trickling rivulets

out of the current and into the shallows

run through foamy sand-brown surf

throwing pebbles and crystalline salt in your wake

the television says the smooth beaches and gentle creeks of my memory are deadly

and on bad days I believe this is true and recall tsunamis and flash floods instead

—-

in familiar forest layers I take comfort

under the trees because the rain falls softer there

but rapidly and unexpectedly

there is a forest fire whirling out into the downpour

I am simultaneously the flames and the pouring rain, a riptide in a mountain stream

a salmon leaping up a waterfall, vision blurred by clouds of mist and smoke and memory