Jennifer Reeser
The Legend of Leech Place
The place on this Great Smoky ridge
Just east of Tennessee,
My people all with awe now call
the town of Tsanushi.
Here Valley River meets Hiwassee,
Where beauty throbs with gore,
And every week, like driftwood teak,
Some dead thing bobs ashore.
Viewed from above, the confluence
Looks like a living arrow
Where wraiths with quivers race the rivers
Past owl and brown hawk sparrow.
A natural stone bridge connects
The river’s lonely sides
But something troubles these bright bubbles,
Underneath them, slides.
Beneath the long, low, rocky ledge
Where waters boil and hiss,
The currents clear then disappear
Down to profound abyss.
At times a body washes up,
Blistered and badly beaten.
How water warps a bloated corpse!
Ears, nose and mouth half-eaten.
I raise my gaze and see the monster
Massive as a house,
Whose red-striped hide perhaps I’d ride
If I weren’t such a mouse.
It has two hearts which crudely show
This mammoth favors me:
Human daughter, fish out of water.
I give it sympathy.
The elders tell us, “Stay away.
Swift, dead men here have swum,”
So that most wild of any child
Knows better than to come.
It sleeps in this remote abyss,
Then rising from the deep,
It shakes the soil. The waters boil.
You’re lost with one vast sweep.
Huge, fuming, spouted waves, they warn,
And off the bridge you blow –
Frail as a flower the leech will devour.
I doubted this was so.
One day I heard my elders, ran,
Withdrawing out of reach,
Slim as a splinter. It was winter
When I first saw the leech.
That chilling chat was haunted, see.
I understood their talk
About the brave who wanted me,
The arrogant Corn Stalk.
Most every member of our tribe
Revered that awful creature
Except for him, who laughed with dim
Contempt on every feature.
“I’ll dare, I’ll go, and I’ll return,
Its hide tied to my shins,”
Atop the crag, Corn Stalk would brag,
Between his foolish grins.
And this was who they planned for me.
I needed to escape
Into the forest, seek the poorest
Woods of wild grape.
To worry, weep, work schemes to win
More independent ends,
With clinging vines of muscadines
Around me for my friends.
Instead, I stopped atop the bridge.
I stood and thought, “What if…?”
But through the air, I felt it stare,
There perched above the cliff.
Deferring to my shy despair,
Unrolling from a bead,
Descending the peak, it dove, to seek
Some foredoomed fish to bleed;
Some shelter on a sunken shelf;
Some ship in ruins, wrecked.
I shook with awe at what I saw –
This beast had shown respect!
I hesitated, fascinated,
Prepared myself to dive
Into that cease which promised peace –
And to be bled alive.
Scant moments passed while Long Man River
Received my last confession.
I held my breath, intent on death.
Abruptly a procession
Of girls and huntsmen armed with blowguns
Appeared and fired a dart,
Rudely intruding on my brooding,
Broken, hopeless heart.
A handful danced in full regalia,
Their faces painted red.
They followed after cruel laughter –
Corn Stalk at the head.
And as I scurried off the bridge,
Replaced by that bad actor,
It heard me cry, the Great Leech, my
Behemoth benefactor.
It heard my would-be husband shout,
Stopping at mid-ledge,
“I take the name, ‘He Knows No Shame!’”
As he approached the edge.
The placid surface roiled then
As froth spewed higher, higher –
My self-assured warrior lured
Like a rash moth into fire.
The hunters with their dancing girls
Fussed dumbly while he fumed
And wagged bare toes. Huge waves arose –
And Corn Stalk was consumed.
The Leech Place is my haven now.
The line and hook are cast.
From bridge to dam I drift. I am
A No Man’s Land, at last.
I daydream while my Great Leech basks.
Hiwassee goes on streaming
When I go floating, calmly gloating
Where Corn Stalk went down screaming.
Jennifer Reeser is the author of seven books of poetry. She is an author with Penguin Random House, London’s “Everyman’s Library” series, and Able Muse. Her poems, translations, essays and critical reviews have appeared internationally in
POETRY, The Hudson Review, RATTLE, Nimrod, and elsewhere. She divides her time between her Gulf Coast estate and home on the Cherokee reservation in Indian Country, Oklahoma.