Carol Hamilton

I am the woman who carried
people across the Mississippi
before the first bridge. She rowed
her canoe through Minnesota cold.
I go back and forth, as we all do,
simply stitching the torn fabric
together to carry out the task
for a bit longer. The hidden flesh
and icy waters wait where they have
always waited. But remember how
we darned holes in worn stockings,
weaving the threads to last awhile?

Carol Hamilton

The abundance was a harvest
of more than we ever hoped or asked for,
uncountable like elm seed disks
slipping through air on spring morning.
We re-snaked the forest that day.
The mud banks shivered
as the screaming children pulled me there.
Motion. Unexplained. Climbing capsules.
Snakes. The birth day of snakes.
A hallelujah day of snakes.
Heaven laughed down guffaws
and the heavy roof of leaves shook
at the slithering advance.
I think not one snake child
returned to the place of broken shells
and genesis. Not one turned back
to call a mother, show her us.