| Gasper River in the Dark by Brent Fisk My brother is drunk, lurches toward the dark river. Sycamores hiss and metal boats knock against the dock. The loose-papered limbs sway and creak. I run for a flashlight, a frail beam to stir the shadows but deep within a temptation to let him go and find his precious river. But there were days before the bottle, two boys in another storm, and he would shine the light against the wall, make lame shadow puppets with funny voices, creatures timid and terrified of the lightning as me, of the thunder that chased them down. He might play the flashlight like a bright trumpet, light disappearing in his mouth, Dizzy Gillespie cheeks like fat red balloons, all that blood rushing to his mouth. And now, homeless and unshowered, this, his only place to go. All day I’ve discovered bottles in Pringles cans, in the vegetable bin, floating in the tank that fills the toilet. When I drain them in the sink, he’s lost his family. So now he slips to the river for what? Another hidden bottle, a midnight swim, a boat ride to the levee where he can test his nerve on the man-made lake, lightning looking for fools, thunder rattling the water’s windowed surface. My brother is a shadow cast into the trees. The blood flows into my mouth. I give myself a strange voice, call out. Take my useless light and disappear into the blackness that remains when my brother’s swallowed all the fear in the world and gone to the river for more. |
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Brent Fisk, a three-time Pushcart nominee, is a writer from Bowling Green, Kentucky. He's recently had work in Southern Poetry Review, Southeast Review, and Rattle, among other publications. He likes the work of Louise Gluck, Theodore Roethke, and Charles Wright. |