mouth of the river
I dream with my cousin
boat to boat
After the phone call about his passing, I rummage through photo albums, empty envelopes until I find the one tiny photo from a boardwalk booth. We were ten years old, leaning head to head, and smiling at the camera. I had on a hooded sweatshirt and Jack was wearing a checkered shirt.
Later that day, I drive along the Huntsville Road. Wind rocks my truck. Ahead, the pines flash light and dark like wings across water. I remember, my cousin and I swimming away from voices on the beach, diving under and popping up farther and farther from the sand. Fishermen on the pier were waving and calling us back as we stroked our way out on the bay. Wooden boats rocked us with their wakes as we kicked the darkness beneath us for as long as we could.
evening light
the times we meant
to go fishing
—The opening haiku, “mouth of the river,” was among the Highly
Commended selections in the 2014 International Haiku Competition.
lives with his wife, Joan, in Carolina Shores, North Carolina. His haiku collection about rivers, Furrows of Snow, was published by Turtle Light Press in 2019; it received an honorable mention in the 2020 Merit Book Awards. His new collection about waterways, Where the Tide Meets the Stream, was published by Pineola Press in 2020.
