Jonathan Humphrey
Local Yokel River Sutra (Rainbow Darter Dialectics)
Word got out that our little river town has a never-ending barge and now people are camping out along the shore and taking pictures and I know what you’re thinking, how could one town have a never-ending barge, it would extend into other towns, and that rivers don’t run forever and what about waterfalls and I understand you have your doubts but this isn’t something I can fully explain, other than you have to be here and watch it scare the piss out of the horizon and watch your own brother swim out and climb aboard and grow old cleaning its deck and walking what we call the blank, like the plank, get it, because if you touch the barge you can’t get off, you’re forced labor and made to keep it so tidy that the egrets fly up close and practice smiling in its black mirror, see you walk the blank on your hundredth birthday, feet straight out into the dark air and you sink straight down, but I rent scuba gear if you want to find who’s who, including former presidents and a weathered queen whose crown is missing a sapphire and it’s up on the barge and rolls and rolls and looks like the purest drop of cool water when it bounces up above the starboard side and you get sucked into these little details and it becomes a way of life and there’s nothing else that matters more than its arrival and departure and it touches everything and everyone and you can’t catch your breath because it’s that damned good.
overtaking the barge
dusk floats its idea
of mauve
Note: “overtaking the barge” originally appeared in Kingfisher #12.
About the Author
Jonathan Humphrey’s work has recently appeared in Acorn, Frogpond, Modern Haiku, and The Heron’s Nest. With a fondness for whiskey and whippoorwills, he divides his time between the lights of Nashville and the woods of his native Kentucky.