HUNTER THERRON

Whitewater

The lights in the cabin buzzed and failed. Tony climbed through
the window. No dice. Our breath in the living room. Ripped

blankets, pillows, sheets, cushions from every surface, wrapped
ourselves up, criss-cross, face-to-face on the living room carpet.

The fire cracked. It threw our faces into shadows. Morphed the black
bear head perched on the mantel. It’s glassy black eyes and marble

teeth, patched up from buckshot. Tony’s neighbor shot it in the mouth.
After five rounds, it fell backwards, slumped in the lake, got stuck under

the pontoon boat. It drowned and sank. Five men hauled it out with cables
while Tony’s sister cried, and her mother cooed. She whispered that Mr. Bear

was surrounded by angels that danced between his busted, piano-looking teeth.
And then, now, the creaks in the boards from the wind are rising.

The house feels stilted. Tiptoed. Our breath shakes the walls. These quilt-parkas.
Twenty-year old ski gloves cinched around our feet. You. The bear. The wind.

The night. The cold. Stomach. Blues. Something shooting up through the ground.
You move your mouth to speak through the dark, and all I hear is Rain.

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Hunter Therron teaches English on a small Thai island. His first chapbook, Whitewater Blues, is forthcoming from Zoetic Press. His prose and poetry have been published in the Little Patuxent Review, the Barely South Review, Really System, and others. Last month, he motorbiked 3,000 kilometers into the Myanmar Himalayas to research Lisu culture for his next novel.