Controlling Nothing, the Selkie Sends a Message through the Water
Rent from DeepDyve- Controlling Nothing, the Selkie Sends a Message through the Water
Granny stopped her first flood in ’34 when she walked the railroad bridge.Effie selling daisies in town and Willis worked the field, she took it uponher little skin and bones to dare herself to walk across the river.
When those ripples would get too uppity, lapping the bottom not a foot from her,she’d say “Water, now hush … now hush” and it did … it did.But there wasn’t much on the other side, so she walked back across that night.
I don’t care how good you are, I don’t carehow high. Don’t let them wash the clayfrom off your foot soles, child.
In the 100-Year Flood, she lived in town. Land by the dump was cheap,she knew she could outlast trash. When developers sold parcelsin the old slag pit to the Moores and Newmans she laughed.
Living by it is bad, but not so bad as not knowing you’re of it.In ’97 everything came back up like bodies in New Orleansbefore the mausoleums, before stone kept them at rest.
When water began to climb her hill, slapping at her small brick wall,she looked out on the sea of forgotten fenders and nailsand said, “Just stop it, now hush … now hush” and it did. [End Page 142]
Jennifer Schomburg Kanke is a doctoral candidate at Florida State University. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Pleiades, Fugue, and the Tampa Review. She currently serves as poetry editor for the Southeast Review.
