Lanny Boykin Rises Up Singing
i.
Woke up today, like so many other days, aching on a riverbank, hair sticky with mud, arcane patterns fading from my skin.
This time, I really thought I was gonna make it.
It’s a cool, wet morning, and I’m sprawled on my back, my field of vision filled by the uniform grey of the sky, a frame of wet black reeds. A cloud of gnats circles overhead, curious, growing bolder. . . .