I am frantically searching
for a sharp knife: I need
to cut the sulfur from my skin.
From this river side, I can tell you
the signs of infestation:
1) the growth of tubers, and then
2) the spread.
3) When every bank of the river is covered
in tubers, the river will die.
We invented herbicide to combat this.
Sulfur, like cancer or tubers, is small,
spreads quickly, and is nearly impossible
to be rid of once it catches your skin.
Have you ever used herbicide only once?
The tubers will return. What’s unnerving
about cancer is being given blinders
and told to gallop. Try to ignore death
when it appears on the edge of the roads.
I have sulfur hiding under my skin, or
sulfur growing like tubers. It’s seeding,
turned my bloodstream yellow, and
I know this will be the end of these rivers.
Noah Dversdall is a young writer from Dayton, Ohio. He works as a poetry reader for The Adroit Journal.
