Flood

 

Emily Carlson

​

​

Folding a paper crane

I’m unsure what

I missed. My mother isn’t

wearing her ring.

Something is about

to happen. Or it

already has. A deer

would rather

touch the earth

than hover, even when

her field has flooded.

At any point the poem

could turn toward grief

as I refused

to turn as a girl. At dawn

the deer’s bed

is a warm oval

in the bent grass. In one

of my father’s

science tricks he sits

on a plank and

says, “Lift me!”

I can’t do it so

he moves farther away.

He calls the distance

between us my

advantage, lets me

try again. There he goes,

toppling off

the other end.

Further away the yellow

coo-coo sang

when the door to her

clock flung open.

I begged to see her                    

but tomorrow

hides in a dark room

and she’s quick. Still,

my mother let me

turn the minute                                                 

hand until it clicked.

She appears, though it’s

not her time.

The cry of the bobolink

perched on a grass stem.

Her metallic, rambly

song. At night I shine

the spotlight on

a deer bedded down

in the pasture. Did I imagine

“I” am here

at this end and “you”

are there? My father

sat with me

no matter how wild

my story. Have some tea,

I said. I’ll pour it, he said.

Tell me how it is

with you. I’m learning

to do what the deer do.

To stand in it, the water

around my ankles

and not wait—feel.

​​​​

​​​​

​​​​