by Karen Schubert
There is water on Mill Road,
but no barricade means
it’s not too high yet. You ease
the car in, slip along, turn off the CD,
your heart is bass enough,
but you know you’re in too deep,
too late, you crank your head around,
click into reverse. Silence –
just the sibilance carrying
cargo past your headlights, a child’s
pool, a swimming cat.
You open your mouth and the water
finds its level up and over the hood.
You are saying Jesus, Jesus,
scale out the window onto the roof,
call someone on your cell phone,
wish you had a flashlight.
A firefighter plucks you
like a ripe armful of lilies.
Karen Schubert’s poetry and prose are forthcoming in Gently Read Literature, MUSE, Penguin Review, Artful Dodge and Wisconsin Poets’ Calendar 2012, and nominated for 2011 Best of the Web. Her chapbooks are Bring Down the Sky (Kattywompus, forthcoming) and The Geography of Lost Houses (Pudding House, 2008). She has an MFA from the Northeast Ohio Master of Fine Arts, teaches writing at YSU and Mill Creek Park, and blogs at karenschubert.blogspot.com.