After a Year of Drought

We went to my friend’s lake house
hoping the water was still up to the dock.
It was, but mud ran alongside the pilings,
made it look like a construction site,
with bottles, cans, and one boot
of a sort fashionable among young girls
in 2003.

Or as if the land was creeping back
to reclaim its own, after
the Hydroelectric Act of 1939
or whatever thing the legislature enacted
between dime-cigar bets and happy girls

flooded the land between two counties
mocking that part of creation where
dry land divided the waters and it was good

but it was also good to get out
on a boat and see the pine trees whizz by
like a flooded out interstate,
or Venice writ large and southern-style.

My friend pointed out trees
hanging on to dry land
roots leached out of the water
like receding gums,
or an uprising.

written in response to a dVerse prompt.