Kathy McGoldrick

Hellbenders

After the 2022 flood of the River Caney in Eastern Kentucky

One theory claims the hellbender was named by settlers who thought it was a
creature from hell where it’s bent on returning.

There were hellbenders still alive on cracked asphalt
after waters receded
and forty-five people drowned.
Only one was not found.

They made their way back.
Some of the people left the bottom,
set small houses high like tenative kisses
up on the flats of the coal-mountain mastectomies

half hoping that Henbit and Purple Deadnettle
might put down root there.
But after the river healed some
Farmer Baker, with the insurance money,

bought an excavator to find his wife.
As I live and breathe I know
it is that much love
we owe now.

Kathy McGoldrick received an MFA at SUNY Buffalo, then raised daughters, then had a career in social services. Retired, she writes again.