Why Our Mother Warned Us about Playing in the Creek

It was less about jagged tin lids or the mossy slickness of rocks tumbled down from the hillside than bigger dangers our mothers couldn’t name. More about what was hatching beneath those rocks. A quickening. Larvae set to emerge as nimble-legged, winged creatures. The instinct to course into larger bodies of water. Or vanish into air.

that first puff
of a cigarette . . .
fading contrails