He is near the east bank, approaching a line of willow trees that drag their long slim fingers in the river. He paddles that way and catches onto the spindly trailing branches. Working hand by hand downstream he comes to an opening and pulls himself in to the bank. A stand of mallow bushes in full red bloom behind the willows. His heart beats hard and he raises his eyes and looks at the sky that is the color of blue-eyed grass. He eases off the log onto his knees and the ground seems to sag under him but maybe that is only him and he gets to his feet and at first hunched over then upright puts his footprints into slick black earth and staggers ashore. He stands there looking around and he doesn’t know what to do next. The complicated green bushes all filled in, the red, loose-petaled flowers like gifts he maybe is supposed to take into his hands. I don’t know. Then something comes to him. He backtracks and drags the log up the bank over the prints just in case he finds no place for himself on that side of the continent. Then he crawls up through the mallows to the grassy edge of a field spotted here and there with tall purple pokeweed and stands up, eyeballing the terrain: a fleshed-out hacked and vine-strewn world with no sign of a special prison other than the one that is everywhere. Hilly fields like bosoms lifting into the distance. He pushes back into the mallow bushes, squirrels a place among the sour-smelling leaves, lies down and falls asleep.
