Quarry Lake is the moisture
sucked from a humidifier
In my cousin’s room 
It’s the humid lungs 
Of a single wide trailer’s
Sole window unit AC 
why she put her pretty face
 There to that mildew mist
Like it was the only liquid 
She could taste
I will never know 
She was Miss Boyle County Teen 
Who loved undercooked bacon 
Quarry Lake is the cellar 
It’s the attic , too 
Quarry Lake is a lesbian 
Just as the sea is a big ol dyke 
It’s our enormous concrete birdbath 
From Italy 
After the rain 
It’s the creek at Rupert’s Ford 
Where Daddy made us turn around 
 Just out of sight was a bloated dead dog 
Upstream covered in ants 
 it’s the big table from Italy 
Where the  cats would
Push paws in pats of soft butter 
where we drank weak tea 
That’s how warm Quarry Lake is 
Even In the darkness 
my round faced children are there , too 
It’s the little black bears 
Our coon hounds chased off into the pines 
They were my children, too , those bears 
But they don’t remember. 
Quarry Lake heals prophecy sickness 
It moves like the river 
That moves like the sea.