Page 27 - Contrast1985v27
P. 27

LOOKING FOR BOTTOM

                    It was hot
                    And it was Sunday
                    And I ran along the dirt road
                    Hopping over the fresh tire tracks
                    As if they could kill me.
                    I ran down this road to follow the sirens
                    To a clearing around a pond where
                    An ambulance waited.

                    They said he was down there - dead.
                    I looked hard
                    At the still surface
                    But couldn't see him.
                    A boy, eighteen, drowned.
                    I remember me standing on a large rock
                    That thrust into the pond,
                    Looking hard, but not seeing a thing.
                    I ran home after the ambulance left,
                    Being very careful to avoid the ruts.

                                                                                   Bill McCarthy

PAST HURTS

The blade stuns the finger                                                                        Nancy Sekira
to sudden paleness.
Oozing slowly,
wet melancholy
seeps from its chamber,
rushes to follow
cracks and creases
time has marked
on the hand.
Rivers of red
dry and crack,
turn to dust.
Washed away
and forgetten.

                          Sandra Carlson

                                          - 2S-
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