Mundane The table groans like a grandfather, my weight upon it. The wood cheaply slapped together, purchased and chosen by frugal necessity, dutifully serving us for half a decade. My skin brushes over the ridges and indents, valleys and chasms – etchings created by cups, plates, utensils of family, of time spent here, talking, voices echoing in the valleys below – Child’s choral chanting, Songs of the river maker. I am no cartographer, I don’t wish to map over this geography, this patchwork island of reminders, it bears our name, a new image. Once, a cup toppled over, tower like, spilling; the water pooled in vast lakes, manmade, Child-made, rather, and in these same ridges I saw rivers raging, carving out new chasms, canyons, birthing other small streams, spider legs of water. I expected to see trees sprout anew, to see parched birds gulping from the riverlets – Drinking unrestrained and winging into edenic heaven.
Dylan Webster lives and writes in the sweltering heat of Phoenix, AZ. He is the author of the poetry collection Dislocated (Quillkeepers Press, 2022), and his poetry and fiction have appeared in anthologies by Quillkeepers Press and Neon Sunrise Publishing; as well as the journals The Dillydoun Review, Last Leaves, and The Cannons Mouth by Cannon Poets Quarterly. He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.
Amethyst Review 