The following is poem number 14 of 2009’s NaPoWriMo – 30 poems in 30 days during the month of April. The original prompt was, “my father’s moved creeks”, which I heard fall out of someone’s mouth yesterday (I’d never heard that before).

THE MOVER OF CREEKS

See the old man with his tools, red hands soft
from moving mud, tails of his flannel shirt wet,
blue jeans kept together by patches Ellie sewd.

Her cellar won’t take another flood, not like the last
that swept her canned pears downstream,
just about took the house. My father’s a sucker
for weepy women, especially ones

who bake good cobbler any time of year,
put a big piece of summer on a plate, sit and talk
about stars being closer in the winter,
then bring him more.

He loves the water, but mostly loves that cobbler
on nights when the moon is on top of the house
and he’s the last man on earth.

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