On a Bank of the Tennessee Late August

While the sun stained
the still river blood-red
as a tapped vein,
I dragged the canoe onto shore,
and with afternoon my accomplice,
studied plunder. Sifted loose
by winter rain, the past
uncovered itself
by shard and broken point,
by flint worked
to an almost useful shape.

Lifting a black clay fragment
I traced the pattern etched there,
felt the electric pulse
of human touch.
The pile of contraband
in the stern grew: scraper,
cooking rock, bird point,
reminders that
water could not claim
forms humans made:
vessels someone shaped
and learned to shatter.