![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg2sqAO42laeEV7nZwuf06nfsdHVARTiN7aJgyCKLghrC6Adx-9ieHuosWvIJK_LajW0nib2C6XsRiXic_UaWoxAGEgusYBdc9ewX-RBy-TY3VJRSv3jxCRfs8eGDK8waFk5wu/s320/IMG_8621.jpg)
The silt-slipped skin off a mounded barrow clouding inlets as the rain carries a wet dust down, tears mixed with mud on my cheeks. Deckled edges—oak and cottonwood leaves turning to coal, slime mold tumuli, drowned grass. A slick of algae greases where I stand, so I straddle a tine of tarnished water—a rill forking from creek into river—unsteady on a fallen branch. (The crows above me all see how the river bisects me, how it seeps right through me, all the chambers of my heart.)