Our Side of the Creek

We piled planks, sheets of tin, & sandbags across the creek till the bright water rose & splayed both sides, swelling into our hoorah. Our hard work brought July thrashers & fat June bugs in decades of dead leaves. Water moccasins hid in holes at the brim of the clay bank as the creek eased up pelvic bones, hips, navel, & chest, to eye level. When the boys dove into our swim hole we pumped our balled fists to fire up their rebel yells. The Jim Crow birds sang of persimmon & mayhaw after a 12-gauge shotgun sounded in the deep woods. If we ruled the day an hour the boys would call girl cousins & sisters, & they came running half-naked into a white splash, but we could outrun the sunset through sage & rabbit tobacco, born to hide each other’s alibis beneath the drowned sky.