you won't come back
by Nicole Mason
to that creek with the sluggish brown water that swells up each spring and recedes as if sipped from old bags of toilet wine God won’t find you in the cornfields where the soil hides the smell of the Dawn you use to wash your hair your clothes your bare feet that run with dogs through this copse this orchard this dirt road sometimes you find a fortune teller sleeping in the barn sprawling naked body in the hay foam lichen you throw her quarters harvested from your mother’s purse she eats them up quick and claps slow her big toe points to the creek that winds around the fields silver in morning otherwise not she says you’ll be famous when you’re sucked down in April the sun high and cold your girl-body floating a blue raft for crows their wing-span marking how long you played by yourself crouched in the thin shade of the willows counting ant trails sifting sand through the inexplicable equation of your fingers beating each movement of your sad songs to the jays the rabbits the sky you won’t come back and that’s a fine thing for a dead girl to do
