I probably don’t know anyone who’s drowned in the Mississippi River tonight. I wrote a poem once about an escape across the Ohio but there was a reason for that crossing. It mattered. Today was routine. The drive from work, to the restaurant, on the way to church, the Twins game or over to the U for an evening class.

In the late afternoon, the river was a nice view since the sun shines a little differently on it than the rest of the water in town. And then it began to pour. Concrete, steel, cars, people, trucks, lives and worlds falling in to and on top of each other. Pouring, dropping, dying into the river.

I care too much about them. I’ll ask too many questions and find too few answers. I already know that I’ll never quite understand. Why these people? Who did they harm?

Was one of the victims Jaime’s nurse when she got sick last summer? Will Bob’s summer camp counselor be found in the morning clinging to a rock? Did Nolita’s friend Melissa take 494 today instead of 35W?