Tuna Crick by julia

[cameron]

Tuna Crick
(Crick is another word for creek in Pennsylvania)

The Tributary filtered purely
down Allegheny mountains,
bubbled at the wild morels,
fed moss sod on fallen cedars.
But then seduced by refinery oil,
and like an obedient woman,
she capitulated into man-made hands,
settled the lees in the valley,
and coughed up Tuna Crick.

Here we learned balance,
on granite edges on the reservoir,
knee socks thrown under the elms,
Levi's rolled to the thigh,
stepped carefully in bare feet.
We poked Gardener snakes
as if they were secrets,
and then flung them down to the water,
their ringed undersides spilling old grudges.
Patted the soft white bellies of toads,
tendering guilt for removing them
from their families,
kicked Miller beer bottles
discarded by the older, bad boys
--they were glass then
with no tin pop tab,
we heard them roll,
clinking and tinkling
into the gully.


I remember sitting
on the crick's concrete rim, laughing,
the second slab far below me.
There was rot upon that ridge,
where something died,
and below in the water's lip
bobbed oily fish,
reflected rainbows on scales,
seeless eyes arched up,
slid away from sockets.

I pitched forward, straight down,
six feet below on the hard rock,
still in a sitting position, dazed.
I could not breath for the crushing
of my tailbone.
The other girls cried from up above,
their pouting voices bouncing off the water,
out of the iron teeth below the bridge.
"Are you alright? Are you alright?"
Unable to speak, the tears dirtied
my cheeks.
I might as well have landed in the dry
riverbed of Hiddekel.

There is an epiphany at eleven
that crying cannot save you,
even the gentle persuasion of hands
cannot comfort you,
places where voices will not reach.
Ultimately, gravity becomes your love-mate
when you understand
fish will drown in air,
floating is only the memory of babies
and for those things beneath
the slick pebbled water.