POETRY
Youth: Russian River
by Amanda Yskamp

With what effort do I remember the boys,
the girls, who leaped from the railway trestle,
the one boy who clung, the one who climbed the dare
higher into the crisscrossed structure?
Jump! Jump! The river sang, fluent.
I am deep. I am shallow. Fickle.
Fond. I shatter spines. I rush when full.
I let the fat child float. I loosen the knot.
I drown the drunk. I flood my banks. Jump.
And the teenage girls in brilliant bikinis
and ponytails jumped and the teenage boys
in cut-off jeans with breath of nicotine
jumped, and the one boy who didn't really
want to, who trembled, lowered himself
to a crouching, then sitting, position,
let go of the rusting iron cables
and allowed himself to fall.