Alumni Updates

The Flood

after Lucille Clifton

We said
it was the tree of life

we thought
rising the new way was not lucifer but venus in the morning caught like a star
in the branches

no …
coiled into the shadow at the trunk’s foot scales
shine like kaddish

and even the
solitary child
the hope of our mornings
is drawn from her book
is walking in the dog hot day
her hair smoothed as if ironed
the hum of cicadas
the two eyes under the foot bridge the corn silk limp
heat lightning
hell sulfur
just as the gob pile gives
the water fills the holler
from enclosing ridge
to enclosing ridge