A last rock-skip hurlstorm ( crazing river-glass )
the closest they ever were.
•
In right lockstitch
snared and split some fire-supper cooked on sticks.
•
By dawn the older brother took to chucking
what bottle-frags he could find and crud-oysters across.
The ( high-pitched ) younger blacked our waters
with a yowl.
•
Lord the sound such as rose from him
carried so—
Carved
into us. Clings.
•
Hadn’t they clung tooth and claw to branch and bark.
—Came a man ( and truck ) to take them off.
•
Dieseled those boys off
away
some say somewheres upcountry,
inland.
•
Where it was they landed ( why ) nobody not them knows.
•
No body not them knows
just how they humped and grubbled home
what road they’d graved what woods crisscrossed
which creeks which trains they’d hopped who helped.
•
Came safe home sure but blank as houses.
Came safe home —as him. —and him.
—as ( evermore ) not them.