Next to the creek that sings
like trucks on gravel,
the boy with mud-puddle eyes
chops hollow trees to burn.
His body curls under the ax,
the wood makes a sound like aching.
The girl wonders who taught him how to survive.
She stares from the picnic table while
June sky splinters the tree roof.
She is drunk off cheap beer,
the smell of bug spray, the boy’s skin in sunlight.
The boy dips his hands in the water,
the moths on paper towels are too perfect to move
so he dries his hands on her hot shoulders.

Now, rain drowns the fire and soaks the night
while the girl with crickets in her hair
sleeps among the puddles
with the boy who taught her how to float.

BIO: Liv Hazard is a wife, mother, and green-thumb-in-training with a Creative Writing degree from Le Moyne College.