Crick

‘Hush your mouth,’

Mama said, wielding

a wooden spoon,

‘the word is creek.’

But Mama creek is

the dying sound of

that which is already

dead. Creek is split

wood meeting air

and crying out

for the bark it once

knew. Creek is the

taste of a caught breath

of a skipped heart

beat in the death

of night. But Mama

crick is - ‘Creek!’

but Mama crick is -

Mama. Mama listen,

the sound of water

meeting stone: plip,

rush - ‘Hush!’ - crick.

I remember water

hitting the sides of

my paper mache boat,

the open earth parting,

roots climbing, reach

out over the waves’

and my head, tickling

tops of our noses, tree

tops wishing their kin

goodbye. Crick, I was one

inside the earth though

I was on my journey

out.Crick is that place

in the woods where

the sun can’t touch

the ground and nothing

burns and the leaves

fall and the branches

laugh and Mama don’t

you remember that?

Remember that