Flood in April

Something about the way
he knocked on my bedroom window
after walking eighteen miles
from the Thomaston home for boys
made me bring to his hiding place
by the brook an old sheet,
stretch of laundry line, thermos of milk.

That night we struggled to loop the thin rope
around the rough bark of fallen spruce,
sling the white fabric up and over,
watch it drift down like a spirit.
Under this best shelter
two fourteen year olds could make,
we scraped pine tassels into piles,
made a small bed. Here, was a stump for a stool,
this dry moss a pillow for his head.

The next night, I brought a jar of peppers,
wheat bread wrapped in foil.
We stacked branches in bundles,
poured out gasoline from a jar,
then threw a match and felt
the flames burn warm as last summer
when he stayed with that year’s foster parent next door.

On the last night, Canadian rain
washed down from the north-west,
filled tributaries to bursting,
water rising up along muddy banks.
In my safe bed, I imagined him in the current,
how he would survive to be swept downstream again,
a strong swimmer, strong enough for a while.
I imagined the long slow pull.
I imagined the gravity of moving water in spring.

Jason MacLeod