PERMANENCE

All morning we work, setting azalea bushes, hollies and ajuga,

fingering down amid the dogwood roots for space. Then a flash flood

tests the back slope to see what holds. Forget the rain as

edification—forget the rain as aid to melancholy—this is

rage. Gravel from the drive is swept into the grass, one rut

narrowing deeper toward some hideous core. A sheen of water, utterly

otherworldy, alive, amassing depth, seems to slide the yard, seems

omniscient and inconsolable. Perhaps even this home will be found

not deeply rooted enough—unlike the elm’s due south, admirably contemptible thrust to stay.

appeared in Whirligig, Volume 1, Number 1