“The River’s Secret”
A white teddy bear at the edge
of a boat ramp, the water still as glass
The sparrows are not yet singing
their morning concerto, the trees silent
in sleep—
No one knows the river’s secret
How a mother –all rage and sadness
blind with fear and darkness—
clasped her four children into their seats
drove away from the cramped apartment
littered with broken toys and unwashed dishes
away from that man
How she stopped for a brief moment—
perhaps a moment of light—
to let her oldest, her ten-year-old son, out
of the worn light blue minivan—
before driving on, driving away
How she kept driving
until there was no more road
no more asphalt
only water
How her foot kept the gas pedal down
even after the water
after the van began to float —an instant boat—
before sinking, before filling
with the mouth of the Hudson
the light melody of a children’s song
drowning out the cries of her own children
the fiery blindness driving her foot
against the gas, fierce against water
and then
the swallow of the Hudson
and then
silence
the teddy bear remains
keeping the river’s secret
until the boy—forced to age at light speed—
finds a firehouse
and whispers into the night
*
[This needs a lot of work. For example, more details about the incident have surfaced after I wrote this. There's more but I've run out of time. Keep a lookout for the revisions.]
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