Dig Down Deep

Dig Down Deep

© 2015 Ralph Fletcher. All rights reserved.

There’s water everywhere,”
Bobby used to tell me.
“It’s under the mountains,
even under the deserts
if you dig down
deep enough.”

I didn’t answer him:
he was my little brother
and I just let him talk.

But I found out he was right
when Bobby died a few weeks
after his seventeenth birthday.

My mother cried that night
and every night for a solid year.

Even the old dry faces
sprouted stony tears.