Jeri Theriault

The Sound of Water

 
You have one day to dismantle what your mother left behind. You read the words she
dared   and pack her things to give away or keep.   You listen to the stream tumble
over stones behind her 12x60 single wide     glad she fell asleep to water sounds   like
the lake where she grew up. Or maybe she recalled the Kennebec   awash in yellow
toxins    roiling logs   a clogged history like the watery names—her mother’s from the
lake   DuLac   her father’s Drouin   which looked like drown   and rhymed with ruin  then
changed   for a while  to Delaware.    You find the receipt for her pre-paid funeral and
her scrawled obituary.  Sixteen shelved books. Two photo albums.   One quilt.       
The framed photo of her parents’ 1900 wedding.     Three green glass plates you bought
for her in 1983. The church-shaped bookends you’ll keep. You wash her clothes to
give away and save news clippings and your letters from France. For a while you listen
to the water    she bequeathed   the rhythms of those names you’ve known and lost   
and found again.

Jeri Theriault’s poetry collections include Radost, my red (Moon Pie Press) and In the Museum of Surrender, first place winner of the 2013 Encircle Chapbook Contest. She is the editor of WAIT: Poems from the Pandemic (Littoral Books). Her poems and reviews have appeared or are forthcoming in journals such as The Rumpus, The Texas Review, The New Ohio Review, and Plume. A Fulbright recipient and three-time Pushcart Prize nominee, she won the 2022 NORward Prize (New Ohio Review) and a 2019 Maine Literary Award for poetry. Jeri spent six years of her teaching career as English Department Chair at the International School of Prague, and now lives in South Portland, Maine.

Learn more about Jeri at www.jeritheriault.com