print previewback JULIA B. LEVINE
Cache Creek Bridge at Flood Stage
Upstream, the creek has already crested
over berms, threshed walnut groves,
flung oaks against the bridge, torn
off limbs and crushed them to brush.
Last night, the psychic I dialed up
began by saying, A man here—
newly passed over—asks you to believe
there is nothing more you could have done.
Now the emergency vehicles patrolling
the levee for breaks
restart their loop. The rain too,
falls again over the evacuated farmhouses,
empty pastures, into the stream’s
milk-brown seethe. I’m done
second-guessing what comes next,
whether an oracle or charlatan ferried
something of you to me
over waves, if there is a god
waiting anywhere for anyone.
Done trying to see the portent
in a blue-capped medicine bottle
floating by, sandbags sinking
underwater, or which red circuitry of roads
will lead me out,
beyond this river with its vicious ardor.
Its bursting forth.
You were the best friend I ever had.
Near dark on the bridge,
I turn my flashlight on.
I don’t know what else to do but witness. 
Published in Ordinary Psalms (LSU Press, March 2021).
Cache Creek Bridge at Flood Stage
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