She took an Alice and Wonderland watch,
a Polaroid taken on the Ferris wheel
at Idlewild Park, and five extra seconds
of breath before the water covered her house.
When she stepped off the porch and slid into the new river, the storm drain on the corner opened its gaping mouth.
The marquee at the neighborhood theater was glowing, outlining its Disney movie in neon flickers.
A blue light broke open as her body entered the swirling basin. She paused to notice the houses, composed and untouched on the other side of the street. She held her dog and felt the black coat of her soft fur as the rushing chill clamped their skins.
But it was her hair, long and loose in the rushing
waters that floated surface-high for her mother to see.
And while the drain siphoned up t-shirt, bra, her watch in the ribboning darkness, her mother
pulled.
In other parts of the city that night, a tow-headed boy failed
to grasp the thrown rope above his body, an old man sleeping, drifted off in his mechanical bed, and the gushing streets gave way. But the Tanneryville Girl’s brown, lush hair—combed out each night for tangles at her mother’s dressing table and never cut—
held.
a Polaroid taken on the Ferris wheel
at Idlewild Park, and five extra seconds
of breath before the water covered her house.
When she stepped off the porch and slid into the new river, the storm drain on the corner opened its gaping mouth.
The marquee at the neighborhood theater was glowing, outlining its Disney movie in neon flickers.
A blue light broke open as her body entered the swirling basin. She paused to notice the houses, composed and untouched on the other side of the street. She held her dog and felt the black coat of her soft fur as the rushing chill clamped their skins.
But it was her hair, long and loose in the rushing
waters that floated surface-high for her mother to see.
And while the drain siphoned up t-shirt, bra, her watch in the ribboning darkness, her mother
pulled.
In other parts of the city that night, a tow-headed boy failed
to grasp the thrown rope above his body, an old man sleeping, drifted off in his mechanical bed, and the gushing streets gave way. But the Tanneryville Girl’s brown, lush hair—combed out each night for tangles at her mother’s dressing table and never cut—
held.
-Sandee Gertz Umbach.
