Downstream
The ice is cracking;
the waters below begin to run.
The holdouts might search for prayers
to pour over the frail shelf at the banks
and find none that will serve.
The rivulets let loose and muddy
the fields made fallow nearby.
Words like hate, neglect
and leaving float down with debris left
from summer’s freewheeling ways.
I wash my last clothes.
Beyond here, old lovers
cannot trust their weight on the ice.
They anticipate the thaw and turn
away from the black waters
and sludge gaining below the surface.
by Michelle Boland
Editor’s Note: As most of us bake in the middle of summer in PA, this poem reminds us that nothing lasts forever, though we may wish it to, as old lovers do.
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