The Wardrobe's Best Dressed: S.B. Ferguson's "River Rise"

River Rise

I.
I ran so far,
then more.
How was I to know
the river
would follow?
Storm driving
water, the red clay
bank brimming
beneath my feet.

II.
All your life, girl,
the cast net
will be waiting.
And so my heart
was flung loose.

III.
The world withers
and bakes.

Sing songs in the shallows
with me, stay
awake and wordless, laughing
mouth to mouth until
the flood comes.

This selection comes from S.B. Ferguson’s chapbook River Rise, available now from Yellow Flag Press. Purchase your copy here!

S.B. Ferguson is a Ph.D. Fellow in Poetry at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. “River Rise” is her first chapbook.

Leslie LaChance edits Mixitini Matrix: A Journal of Creative Collaboration, has curated The Wardrobe for Sundress Publications and written poetry reviews for Stirring: A Literary Collection. Her poems have appeared in literary journals, and her chapbook, How She Got That Way, was published in the quartet volume Mend & Hone by Toadlily Press in 2013. She teaches literature and writing at Volunteer State Community College in Tennessee, and if she is not teaching, writing, or editing, she has probably just gone to make some more espresso.