Rise
- Dec 8, 2021
- 2 min read
by Sarah Freligh
Weeks after the water rose, objects floated up from the drowned city below us: A baby shoe, a Starbucks mug, a red plaid dog collar tufted with wet fur.
*
Once there were eleven of us, once there were fish and berries. The water rose and rose. We used to see boats in the distance. Now we crowd together, ration what we eat. We dream of food hot from the oven, but wake to a cold smear of sun.
*
Books float up, beach themselves as if delivered: a manual on car repair and a mystery missing the last twenty pages. We spend a week arguing about the end. He did it; no, she did.
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We vote when the moon is full. In summer, the moon is a ripe peach. Winter, a plate cold from the refrigerator.
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We practice swimming every day, an hour in the morning and again before sunset. On clear days, we can see the buildings of the city below us, the spire of a church, the metal dome of what used to be the library.
*
Trucks used to deliver books. Their drivers parked in the middle of the street, flashers on, and carried boxes into the house. We stayed home for a year and the trucks brought us everything we needed.
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The sun rises and falls. We quit counting long ago.
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A strawberry moon, a red smear on the horizon that rises juicy, something to pull down and eat whole.
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Kate today, Kate draws the short stick
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The sun rises and falls. The water rises and rises.
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Kate cries as she gives us what she took from before: A teething ring. A lock of hair. A silver thimble.
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Once there was land. Once there was a beach where we spread towels and cooked food over fires and tossed Frisbies to dogs that nipped them from the air. The beach was sand and soft. We stood on the beach at the end of the day and applauded the sun setting over the water and then we drove home.
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We hug Kate and say: Swim hard. You’re strong. Find help. What we always say.
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The dogs got old and died. We buried them with their Frisbies.
*
Home is a hill. There are three of us, the water is rising.
Sarah Freligh is the author of four books, including Sad Math, winner of the 2014 Moon City Press Poetry Prize and the 2015 Whirling Prize from the University of Indianapolis, and We, published by Harbor Editions in early 2021. Recent work has appeared in the Cincinnati Review miCRo series, SmokeLong Quarterly, Wigleaf, Fractured Lit, and in the anthologies New Micro: Exceptionally Short Fiction (Norton 2018) and Best Microfiction (2019–21). Among her awards are a 2009 poetry fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and a grant from the New York State Council for the Arts.
