The Dry Riverbed

By Andrew R. Duckworth

Off the road driving away from Tucumcari is a shallow river with a fork. One side-too shallow for fish, the other-dry as a bone. How long until it all becomes that way, until the water no longer flows in this place? This dry place holds too many stories to count, stories from younger days that no longer make sense. Yet, even in death, memories endure. I like to imagine that somewhere driving on this interstate highway is a driver with fond memories of what this place once was, in younger days that no longer make sense.