"The Gorge" by Rita Dove

Little Cuyahoga's done up left town. No one saw it leaving.

No one saw it leaving

Though it left a twig or two,

And a snaky line of rotting

Fish, a dead man's shoes,

Gnats, scarred pocket-

Books, a rusted garden nozzle,

Rats and crows. April

In bone and marrow. Soaked

With sugary dogwood, the gorge floats In the season's morass,

Remembering its walnut, its hickory, Its oak, its elm,

Its sassafras. Ah,

II.

April's arthritic magnitude!

Little Joe ran away

From the swollen man

On the porch, ran across

The muck to the railroad track.

Lost his penny and sat

Right down by the rail, There where his father Couldn't see him crying.

That's why the express Stayed on the track.

That's why a man

On a porch shouted out

Because his son forgot

His glass of iced water. That's

,v-hy they carried little Joe Home and why his toe

Ain't never coming back. Oh

III.

This town reeks mercy. This gorge leaves a trail Of anecdotes,

The poor man's history.

from Collected Poems 1974-2004, by Rita Dove.

{W. W. Norton & Co., Inc., New York)