Against the Current

by E. C. Traganas

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You talk and talk, lips flapping like padded oven mitts, grating voice a chopping board of raw celeriac root and leeks. Plunge it all into the stew pot and let it simmer in the back burner, please. Let me hear the plashing of ancient streams, winnows threading their way to eternity, fiddlehead ferns drawing their bows across the forest path in muted counterpoint. Watch where you step. I will follow the tops of poplars.

tripping on pebbles
a trail of mindless chatter