~ Delta Poetry Review ~

William Miller

Well Water

Raised on suburban tap water, we leaned

over the sides, looked down into

a steep, stone circle. It took forever to get

the wooden cover off, lay it in the wet grass,

hope no one saw or heard us.

Risk was everything—the chance to lower

the tin ladle on a twine cord, raise the bowl

and skim a spider’s web, a water bug,

from the dark surface. That water was colder

than the ice in the ice maker,

cleaner, fresher than the tap flow good only

to mix our Kool-Aid in, sugar straight

from the Domino’s bag. On the sagging porch,

the old people hated what we’d become,

our skin never broken by a belt or a switch.

They hated our parents, too, anxious for the day

to end, drive home on paved roads.

But we had our taste of well water, something

below the red clay their lives were built on,

our secret shared.

William Miller’s poems have recently been published by The Arkansas Review, Flint Hills Review, Lowestoft Chronicle, Plainsong, and Bear Review. He received two Pushcart nominations in 2023. He lives and writes in the French Quarter of New Orleans.