a few weeks go by

you wake up to the sound of trucks passing overhead

the trees bending, the branches arching towards 

darkness is felt but the oceanic lifting

of the heavy sets is illuminated, stood up by the wind

you are lofted, soft, quilted even, stitched into the fabric of your seat

through this piece of dinosaurs melted down frozen and

reformed into the charging arc,

the island hasn’t moved but the violence of the water blowing

off of it is lifting you into the chunder-dome.

another morning, and the heron is sitting on the raft of garbage and strainers

suddenly plucking a fat fish out of the mess, and shaking the debris off

he swallows her whole,

before flapping off in front of us, maybe we help him hunt as our

dark shapes flush the unseen prey below.

and yet a different day, the beaver slaps at us in the darkness below the brookmont dam, and we run the strainer at the top of the gates wondering where the goddamn entrance is.

before that, three thousand blackbirds pass in an extended wing, burnt against the setting sun.

full stop. the water boils, speeds up, stops below the beltway, in the world’s largest drainage ditch, but the brilliance of the fading sun turns us into silhouettes, ghosts already, paddling into the inky blackness.

we are on the flatwater, fully gripped, hearing the dam get closer and closer, edging along the bank, subverting a beaver slide to our own purposes to get out of the flow.

running little falls at night, the one formerly known as no bolts has no drain plug, one of is blind, but with the island dark against the sodium bulbs of chain bridge, it’s the same as daylight, 12 feet at a time.

at Fletcher's the mud flats are low low, the playboats have a final splat, full circle; the river from sandy beach is played out.