River Telegraph Blues

By Josh Hanson

Remember when you cracked your tooth? Bright blood and yellow grass? Too far up the

mountain, so you pulled it out and smiled with your mouth full of blood and bourbon and your

heavy eyes, the way you rubbed the back of your hand across your mouth, painting your arm.

And the sun went down like a helicopter crash, whirring in our ears and the concussive blast of

nightfall, the mountain swallowing up the light, and you, luminous in your white shirt, your

image reflected on the river’s surface, distorted like a bad signal on an old box tv, wading out,

black water to your thighs, cold shivering up the backs of your legs, and I warned you.

Remember what I said? About the current and how it slides beneath the calm surface? How you

smiled at that, with your hooded eyes and bloodied lips, and how when I reached for you, to feel

the way the cold bristled your skin, you dove away, into the dark open vein of the river.

And the river: a field of biting flies and gnat-clouds and broken glass hiding down

amongst the rocks, a twisting line drawn through a lifetime of doubt and failed third chances, and

I paused to finish off the beer, warm in its bottle, as I watched the V of your movement beneath

the water’s surface, the river slicing up my life, leaving me bare, raw-nerved and trembling. Or it

was you.

And the spit at the back of my throat was burning, I remember, acid and sour, as I

reached in and lifted my heart out of my pale, narrow chest, held it out with two hands. And the

shadow of a bird moved dark across the surface of the river as I lowered my heart down into the

water, let the current carry it away, hoping those mysterious eddies would draw it somehow to

you, that you’d pluck it out of the stream and clutch it to your chest. That was always how I

loved you: throwing away some part of myself and telling myself I’d made of it some gift.

Remember these things, what I said, these things I did, these pieces I offered up, all of it

in the humming darkness just before you broke the surface, pulling me down, filling my mouth

with the taste of blood and the light of a thousand wasted days. And if you remember, remember

this: remember all the things you never heard me say while you were going under and I was

standing at the shore, too frightened to follow.

About the Author: Josh Hanson

Josh Hanson lives in northern Wyoming where he teaches, writes, and makes up little songs. He is a graduate of the University of Montana MFA program, and his work has appeared in journals such as Stoneboat, Black Petals, Dance Cry Dance Break, Diagram, H_ngm_n, and No Tell Motel. Webpage: https://joshhansonhorror.blogspot.com