Night Flood - for the girls at Camp Mystic, Texas - July 11, 2025

a river at night is friendless

someone once said

a full moon softens that attitude

except when it strikes floating beds,

arms reaching for its light and

choked young pleas for help, which

this black water of bewilderment

and fear, swallow without mercy

uncountable pieces of life rush by

a house bobs swiftly along

everything is logs, limbs and lives

in a moving churning blender

the muddy concoction spills onto

banks downstream and beyond

and when the sun rises, nothing

wiggles in the thickening brew

what can parents do but

furiously dig through memories

and find a face

buried in the mud