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Confederate River


ISSUE:  Winter 1998

I will lose myself from the source, downstream
Drifter, and might meet up with the Showboat.
So I’ll do a minstrel number and scheme
For a beer-bean and cornbread meal, then float
On toward the loud shores of owls, hounds, crying
Orphans, and sleepless widows who ask me
What their soldiers said as they were dying—
“Well I didn’t hear every word, but ma’am, be
Assured that his last breaths echoed your name.”
Mind the water, mend the craft; the current
Hurries to catch up with itself, the same
River once, twice, green glass smooth as the bent
Myrtle trees caught in the wind’s soft young hair.
I hear singing, I hum along, sounds fair.

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