Mystic 

I imagine her buried under layers of jagged

sludge filled with torn bedsheets and wood that

splinters against the pressure of the waves as it

crawls down the Guadalupe while I watch the

gas station TV replay news hour “She’s only

9” and while I never knew her I know that the

earth wasn’t prepared for her small body to

collapse into its chaotic violence and neither

was I and now she’s gone somewhere nobody

can find her until they spot the sliver of her

fingertip peeking out from the mud just like

her eyes used to pop up from the blanket held

against her face when she was afraid of the

dark but now pounds of earth paint her dark

brown which is the color of her hair perched in

a ponytail with a grinning smile in that photo

they said was the photo her parents loved

because it shows how she was kind and how

she loved camp and I think she probably loved

horses because little girls love beautiful things.