The Son
The divers pulled a young man out of the river,
a boy of eighteen. His father stood by.
He was an excellent swimmer,
they said. He must have hit a rock,
or got caught on a snag somehow.
I stepped closer.
His skin was stained blue in patches
and pale as moonlight everywhere else.
Jesus, someone said.
A sudden breeze picked up from the far side
blowing back the grasses
like the flames on a birthday cake.
Right then,
it was so quiet you could hear trout starting to rise,
watch their rings spreading out from the underside.
In low voices we talked among ourselves
about how unlucky it was,
and now and then the police radio
blared out its gravelly dialogue,
with feedback punctuating the voices before and after.
The father, staring red-eyed
across the river, pursed his lips
and stood still as a heron,
his eyes on the swirling eddy.
…..
This poem first appeared in RHINO (2024 Founders’ Prize, Runner-Up), and can be found in the chapbook The Art of Undoing by Hudson Plumb (Finishing Line Press) at https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/the-art-of-undoing-by-hudson-plumb/
Hudson Plumb is a poet, playwright, and healthcare communications strategist based in New York City. His poetry has recently appeared in Humana Obscura (Issue 12), RHINO Poetry (2024 Founders’ Prize, Runner-Up), The Courtship of Winds, and Kaleidoscope Magazine, Exploring the Experience of Disability Through Literature and the Fine Arts. His poems have also been published in earlier issues of Webster Review, Missouri, and Kaleidoscope.
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