A House that Looks Like Something a Child Might Draw

Kettle Falls, 1947

On the banks of the rural river’s rain-pocked skin,
grasses in stretched stitches
carpet the campsite’s pine floors
in a braided rug of fabric remnants.
Trees form vertical frown lines between bushy eyebrows,
propping the tarp that covers and hangs like an upper arm’s slackened skin.
The electrical hum from roadside poles
feeds the refrigerator and washing machine
while the firebox beneath the griddle top counter
created from clay carried in coffee cans across the crusted river,
cooks quail, chicken, and pine-scented porcupines cleaned from its quills.

LL, 3/21/2009. Prevail.