where i’m from there’s a lake full of gold which is also a pond full of people & my pops my old
man has taken to buying gold because it’s that or cryptocurrency that will be salvaged in the
flood & people drowned in that pond men who never learned to swim striking out like Michael
Phelps and sinking amongst bubbles and kelp & there are great open spaces where i’m from with
tree lines that stand on toes to respect the expanse of hay & if a flood is coming the lake will
overflow & the gold will carouse through these labored fields & the bodies will still be full of
water & they will still be unpracticed & littered amongst the wreck like salmon on a slippery
deck & i wonder what my dad will think of that
Written by: Paolo Bicchieri
Paolo Bicchieri is a Chicano novelist, poet, and journalist living in San Francisco. His work can be found in Standart Magazine, Nomadic Press, Flash Fiction Magazine, and bookstores all along the West Coast. He loves working with volunteers and students at 826 Valencia and looking at snowy plovers at the beach.
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