One Summer In Charleston Poem by michael hogan

Not far from the Cooper River Bridge
this cornfield ends in marshland.
A solitary crow goes there and returns.
This morning, children from our farm,
heavy with rubber boots and light with wonder,
venture into the marsh.

There is a woman near the old cypress.
They find her, fish underbelly white and bloated,
and what they do is expected.
It is what children do with dead things -
a skunk, a gutted dog by a highway.
They poke her with sticks and the sharp
points of their curiosity. She does not bleed.
A cloud of blueflies vibrates above her.

Her jump from the bridge has come to this:
not resting quietly in that graveyard of beer cans
and clam shells beneath the bridge,
but floating face down in the marsh.
The police know the whole story of
how the darkness of her husband's death
was like the tide that brought her to this place.
So they ask the children only what
they need to know of time and place.

But the children have more of a story to tell:
how the fish nibbled away at the big toe,
how her auburn hair floated red and
green among the duckweed.
She floats now in some of their dreams
face down and heavy with darkness.