HERE, IN THE FLOODPLAIN

HERE, IN THE FLOODPLAIN

by Logan Garner

(Plan B Press, 2023)

Here in the floodplain where

sand dominates the soil

we grow wildflowers and

sit on red bricks

spines bent over books while a 

pig and some dogs push 

their noses around our

tiny plot of land.

The house has been settling too.

Cinders slight downward with 

every hundred passes

of trucked tons of earth 

from down the street where

a big box store will be.

You can roll a marble

south to northwest on our kitchen floor

as reliably as you can find 

the round desiccated things

that journeyed beneath

the refrigerator

like seeds of small, hidden projects

which threaten to grow into

expensive realities

of pine and copper 

and steel and plywood.

At eight feet above the

sea and not more than a

crow-flying mile from the

compulsive waves we get

to feel a part

right outside our door, when 

the wind carries a faint drone 

whispering salt

or, when it rains angry

and the tide is in

watertable riding high

and we sit and look 

At the moat in the yard.

That’s when we (and a pig and 

some dogs) all

cloister ourselves,

each in their own space, to nest

and burrow and close our eyes

for a time.