I remember the old back road I used to drive--
the one that connected my house to yours
with the abrupt boom of green mountainside, fog
clinging in patches above the evergreen

awning, and the old pine reaching far higher
than the rest--a monument to the trees
growing steady in your eyes. I haven’t
forgotten how your irises, only saplings,

drowned in the flood of ‘06 as the Delaware
crawled over the bank and into your head.
I never knew what to make of your
ripple-warped, water-stained fears crashing

rampant as the broken **** that swallowed
Church Street. They reminded me of tangled thorns,
my fingers scarred from moonlit attempts to smooth
needle-edged guilt as you repeated to me:

I’m so sorry, it’s all my fault, I should have known.
You told me how you knew I would, too, wash away--
that’s just what people did after floods.