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2 Aug: "In the Well" by Andrew Hudgins

My father cinched the rope,
a noose around my waist,
and lowered me into
the darkness. I could taste

my fear. It tasted first
of dark, then earth, then rot.
I swung and struck my head
and at that moment got

another then: then blood,
which spiked my mouth with iron.
Hand over hand, my father
dropped me from then to then:

then water. Then wet fur,
which I hugged to my chest.
I shouted. Daddy hauled
the wet rope. I gagged, and pressed

my neighbor's missing dog
against me. I held its death
and rose up to my father.
Then light. Then hands. Then breath.

1 comment:

  1. Almost all these poems are about death.

    Lots of thens in this poem.

    I'm not sure about this one, it seems incomplete. I'm kind of asking myself, so what? Did the boy/girl overcome the fear? But wait... Now I can see a metaphor for the child being lowered to the dark by a parent and then rising to the light.

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