If we gathered where we fit

We could gather together, kinked elbow to elbow, wiggly fingers snugly knotted (not the knot

of a smoothed-down board, the knot, all bumps and twists, we tied when we didn’t tie knots very well, but we tied them

close and tight), at the creek we call a brook to make it feel magical (that kind of magic where frogs speak their curses

before they splash off). We could gather there, and not speak the rathers we’ve used not to,

rathering not to be gathering, rathering not to see how we fit elbow to elbow, or how a creek isn’t any less magical than a brook.