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.