the pool was home for them and they
were feeding edibles got dumped into
its upper end by waters churning from
the falls above the morsel he had chased
looked like most any other bug or cricket
tempting tossed bouncing in that swirl
but if he’s so smart why the hell
would he do a thing like that and
what’s the point of a treat most any
fish would go for he quick grabbed it up
and ran away why him who knows he happened
to be there he asked for it he can
have it we’ll not miss him he’s shown
what he thinks of us the pleasure he’d
expected turned to pain and all at once
became a threat a struggle for his life
i wonder how he feels he probably
just laughs then goes right on
ignoring us he’d seen it happen twice
before this thrashing battle leading to
the disappearance of a friend who fought
in every direction then just quit a rotten
shame but really now we’ve done
all we can do the more he tried the more
his pain increased he’s lost as far
as we’re concerned and the line that held him
drawing tighter needn’t ask our help
because as his freedom shrank it’s all
his fault like pools when summer’s drought arrives

it’s very hard for a free fish to understand
what’s happening to a hooked one

Here in a valley grown with weeds, that hill

above us looking down, I see a mill

and hear its creak and smell the fresh-ground flow

that cooking made so sweet. And here I know

that echoes of a distant past crowd in.

An old man’s memory sees it now as then.

Run quick and fetch a doctor cross that hill

and mend the bloody damage of the mill

that ground like sugar cane the fingers

of this boy. My thoughts on looking flew

past all those years I stared at its misshape

and though but little of a hand’s escape

through surgery done by gathered lanterns low

to serve my Dad some ninety years by now.

He pointed with it then. He showed the spot

where he and brother George next day took what

was left, two fingers dead, and with some care

dug in the earth and placed them wondering there.

David H. Briggs

Because he had lost the index and middle fingers of his right hand, my father always shook hands left-handed.  His boyhood home where this incident occurred was at Brush Creek, North Carolina.  Brush Creek is located near Asheville and today claims a population of 500. My father left Brush Creek to cross the mountains and attend Maryville College in East Tennessee.  After earning his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina, he returned to teach at Maryville College for most of his life.

When we visited my father’s home site, nothing remained of the original buildings, but my father still claimed that he knew the location of his buried fingers “within ten feet.”

The house was one those local firemen
might have used to practice on,
but so far burnt when they arrived, there wasn’t
much to do but water down the shed

and kill the sparks that fell. A rented place

and everybody out was said. The stuff

inside was mostly old and not worth much,

so no one tried to go back in. Except

that in a closet up the stairs, two pretty

dresses hung, a gift the week before

of classes from a nearby church to fourth

grade daughter Carla, who never had a pretty

thing before, and watching crying from the

yard kept thinking they might be the last

she’d ever have. They were. For after while

they missed her. And when the flames

died out, the firemen dreading saw she’d found
that closet, reached inside, and there were
two bare hangers lying on the floor
with her. All black and oddly twisted.

biggest chance for gettin your
tail light caught is move too slow.