River Pruitt

ISSUE 7

AERIK FRANCIS
RIVER PRUITT
KODA SOKOL
MATILDA BERNSTEIN SYCAMORE
KEI VOUGH
RACHEL FRANKLIN WOOD
JONAH WU
LUCY ZHANG

I’m trying to remember the way
Mississippi smells
salted earth
ancient dust
the sweetness of cane swimming through
the breeze

trying to remember where we were
before called to this
place

can emptiness be festering

underneath the red dirt
quiet rising
breathe deeply
silt and clay fills my lungs
takes up my body

beside me lay
stone and bones, mixed
into the ether un
formed

the cracks
come from underneath
and out from it
the flood
of ants
where grasshoppers should be

for Indie

there is a small willow tree
on my block

                             she grows on the shoreline
               of a wide river,
roots desiring
a sensation;
the wet
               touch
               of earth
deep where she is settled

                             back bending towards the
                   water, limbs
          reaching down
     to meet
with the surface—
breaking the tension
with a kiss
and the lightest touch
tracing the edges
               making small      ripples
               with each
movement

her nimble branches,
shifting with the slightest
of the wind’s

                                             breath,

sway rhythmically
a tune flitting through
the same way
warblers
               dance through
the flowering buds
               to catch their soft
Release

the river’s waters catch
    all else that
       falls from
    the breathing in—
  through
her body
and in
but a moment
a piece
    is
       carried
             down     stream