{        
                        site_name: 'Poetry 180',         
                        subscribe_url:'/share/sites/Bapu4ruC/poetry.php'      
                    }

A dog fell down a well, and here
a boy has to help his father retrieve it.

In the Well

Andrew Hudgins

My father cinched the rope,
a noose around my waist,
and lowered me into
the darkness. I could taste

my fear. It tasted first
of dark, then earth, then rot.
I swung and struck my head
and at that moment got

another then: then blood,
which spiked my mouth with iron.
Hand over hand, my father
dropped me from then to then:

then water. Then wet fur,
which I hugged to my chest.
I shouted. Daddy hauled
the wet rope. I gagged, and pressed

my neighbor's missing dog
against me. I held its death
and rose up to my father.
Then light. Then hands. Then breath.

first published in The Southern Review, 2001
Volume 37, Number 2, Spring 2001