Sam: all cusp and sinew, light risen on May and he’s running, along the drive to the creek, where tangles of green lose his ankles quick, and Dean finds a pool, trout and tannin, and they risk, laughing, leeches for birthday fish.
*
Dean fries them up, cracks a beer. Wraps library-lifted tales from three towns ago.
No neighbors near. Honeysuckle and kudzu, and Dad an interstate gone, path of a thing with no name.
He’ll be back, Dean says, lets Sam sad-smile, nearly arch, older than yesterday.
Dude, Dean says, tosses the kid a can.
Roughhouse the dusk away. Fireflies.
*
Couch. Shackhouse bumped by bats, an owl.
They sleep on the same sheet, TV sorry and low.
By midnight Sam is dog-days, one sweat away from nothing, mumbling Dean’s name in hot pants.
Jesus, Sammy, what is it.
Sam’s eyes lift to blank, go back, black; spine stiffens like line and pulls, screams taut.
*
Dad!
Dean dials, crouches, gauges what he can.
Been sick before, both of them; heat-sick, spell-sick, ague; been cut bad, bled, wood-lost and full of sick-fear; gouged, clawed before their time--
Not like this.
*
Three and Sam gasps three times, flat-out stops, goes river-color while Dean shouts and pounds and breathes for, weeps when he starts again, flannel-to-face.
*
Dad.
Pick up.
Dad.
*
There was, once, a honeychild who went down to the stream and never came out. Fish-form now. Last hope of a desperate mother.
There were, once, sisters who drowned and lived again in the runoff.
And six stories that were the gospel of Bad Creek.
And time.
*
Dean runs to the water, dumps back the dinner-remains, fish-whisker and bone, blood, a cup of, more than one.
Look, I don’t know who we offended, but you gotta give him back.
Please.
Spring rustlings. Moss-fumes.
The water curled around his ankles. Leather and water and he kneels in it, lets the creek talk trash--
about his little brother, and all the banks he’ll teeter on. Kneels and breathes a lungful, chokes it clean again.
Please.
Tears, wet, up the drive to cup his brother’s head.
*
Daybreak, an engine.
Honeysuckle trembling on the verge. Green-eyed boys grown into.
The day breaks and Sam is thirteen, and breathing.
FILLED: Bad Creek Fairytale
Sam: all cusp and sinew, light risen on May and he’s running, along the drive to the creek, where tangles of green lose his ankles quick, and Dean finds a pool, trout and tannin, and they risk, laughing, leeches for birthday fish.
*
Dean fries them up, cracks a beer. Wraps library-lifted tales from three towns ago.
No neighbors near. Honeysuckle and kudzu, and Dad an interstate gone, path of a thing with no name.
He’ll be back, Dean says, lets Sam sad-smile, nearly arch, older than yesterday.
Dude, Dean says, tosses the kid a can.
Roughhouse the dusk away. Fireflies.
*
Couch. Shackhouse bumped by bats, an owl.
They sleep on the same sheet, TV sorry and low.
By midnight Sam is dog-days, one sweat away from nothing, mumbling Dean’s name in hot pants.
Jesus, Sammy, what is it.
Sam’s eyes lift to blank, go back, black; spine stiffens like line and pulls, screams taut.
*
Dad!
Dean dials, crouches, gauges what he can.
Been sick before, both of them; heat-sick, spell-sick, ague; been cut bad, bled, wood-lost and full of sick-fear; gouged, clawed before their time--
Not like this.
*
Three and Sam gasps three times, flat-out stops, goes river-color while Dean shouts and pounds and breathes for, weeps when he starts again, flannel-to-face.
*
Dad.
Pick up.
Dad.
*
There was, once, a honeychild who went down to the stream and never came out. Fish-form now. Last hope of a desperate mother.
There were, once, sisters who drowned and lived again in the runoff.
And six stories that were the gospel of Bad Creek.
And time.
*
Dean runs to the water, dumps back the dinner-remains, fish-whisker and bone, blood, a cup of, more than one.
Look, I don’t know who we offended, but you gotta give him back.
Please.
Spring rustlings. Moss-fumes.
The water curled around his ankles. Leather and water and he kneels in it, lets the creek talk trash--
about his little brother, and all the banks he’ll teeter on. Kneels and breathes a lungful, chokes it clean again.
Please.
Tears, wet, up the drive to cup his brother’s head.
*
Daybreak, an engine.
Honeysuckle trembling on the verge. Green-eyed boys grown into.
The day breaks and Sam is thirteen, and breathing.