Searching Sutter Slough
Memorize these ruts
or you’ll never find your own
way out. Here’s the one
that taps the oil pan.
Impossible
for an old man in a Chevy
sedan. Dead possum on the berm.
Remember. Sandtrap
comes next. Memorize this
backwards,
a map you can turn upside down
to get out. He didn’t
or we wouldn’t be looking
for him.
Should never
have been here at all,
headed from one place to another.
This particular piece of desolation
with its mazy hunter’s tracks in mud
was nowhere near
en route. He must’ve gotten here
remembering the ways he walked
through childhood.
Cold tonight
so the air dews over
our boots and eyelids.
No stars, no sound, no direction.
Walking the murk by flashlight,
we step through haloes.
Poor light for finding
solid footing
or an old man in his personal
fog.
~ Taylor Graham
from Casualties: search-and-rescue poems (Coal City Review)