River, Carry Me Away

I keep to the rivers, the bog ways and marshes. Thigh-deep is best. I can still walk and trail my hands through the water. Smoke curls off my a ms, but it keeps my hands from flamin .

- Anna Yeatts

A fellow in tan dungarees fly fishes from the bank when I sidle round the river bend. He’s got whip sharp eyes the color of ashes and he sees me before I can slink away.

 

“Girl in the river,” he calls. “What’s your coming and going?”

River water boils around my legs. I leave a trail of hissing steam as I wade toward the opposite bank, putting the river between us.

“Don’t want any trouble,” I say. The clay is red as long-banked coals. It squelches beneath my toes, cool and soft. “I’ll be gone soon enough.”

But he’s studying me with the same face I’ve seen a thousand times. The locals never know what I am.

Neither do I, I suppose.

At midday, when the sun lights me up like a sulfur match across a striker, I find a mangrove or bitter ash to hide under. I hunker down like a croc— nothing but my eyes, nose, and top of my head above water—and wait. When I stop smoking like a chimney, I move on again.

But it’s barely morning. And I don’t have the luxury of staying put.