Dig Down Deep

There’s water everywhere,”

Bobby used to tell me.

“It’s under the mountains,

even under the deserts

if you dig down

deep enough.”

I didn’t answer him:

he was my little brother

and I just let him talk.

But I found out he was right

when Bobby died a few weeks

after his seventeenth birthday.

My mother cried that night

and every night for a solid year.

Even the old dry faces

sprouted stony tears.

      © 2015 Ralph Fletcher. All rights reserved.